I’m reading through a book by Gerald May called The Dark Night of the Soul. Gerald May was a psychiatrist who, in his own words, became weary of the medical profession’s way of handling the soul of patients. He eventually became a spiritual director and author of several works related to spiritual development.
In Dark Night of the Soul, May, exploring St. John of the Cross’s work by the same title, discusses the work of the Lord God deep within a person’s being as a mysterious and beautiful thing, an intimate work that is initiated in love and is designed to free us for love. St. Teresa of Avila was a contemporary of John, and in fact, he counted her as one of his spiritual mentors and teachers. Being contemplatives, both Teresa and John recognize the utter worth of the human soul, its beauty and goodness. May quotes Teresa as saying, “I can find nothing with which to compare the great beauty of a soul… we can hardly form any conception of the soul’s great dignity and beauty.”
Those words certainly sound mystical to our ears. We rarely speak of the soul today, although it is gaining more attention in some circles, like Christian psychotherapy. John and Teresa recognized it as, next to God Himself, the most beautiful and worthy thing. They loved it, adored it, respected it, because they began to see that God treated it with such dignity and love, that Jesus came for ransom of it and freedom for it.
There is a recent movement in Christendom to recognize what’s been called the “good heart.” This “New Covenant” movement (as one author puts it), which I believe God is very much behind, seeks to bring to light the inherent goodness and strength of a heart given over to Christ, that it is no longer “deceitfully wicked” as the Scriptures say of a heart detached from Him (Jeremiah 17:9), but rather “good” and even “noble,” to quote Jesus (Luke 8:15). This runs counter to much contemporary theology, which seems to see the heart as perpetually wicked, and which tries to operate a kind of “sin management,” in Dallas Willard’s words, to keep the believer from running amok doing all kinds of bad things.
The implication of the “good heart” theology is pretty radical. It means that we can begin valuing the deep heart within once more, and recognize the awesome thing that it is. It means we can work with one another to help set each other free, and that once we are disentangled from all the briars (what John of the Cross calls “attachments”), we can “run in the paths of [God's] commands” (Psalm 119:32) and walk in the “path of life” (Psalm 16:11) that God shows us. We can drop the sin management stuff and bring dignity back into our ministry with folks.
What stands out to me in what Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross say is that recognizing that the heart is “good” isn’t enough. They push the envelope even further. They suggest that the heart (or “soul” in their vernacular) has “great beauty.” John writes that once we enter fully enough into union with God, we will see ourselves aright. ”The soul,” he says, will “see herself as a queen.” This is far beyond merely being “good.” This is a kind of glorious honor, an extravagant dignity. The soul is ravishing. Glorious. Beautiful beyond compare, especially to the One who made her.
Could this be a part of the “secret wisdom” that has been “hidden” and that “God destined for our glory from before time began”? (1 Corinthians 2:7).
In our Christmas hymn, we sing of how “the soul felt its worth.” But how often has that happened? How many people do you know who can say, truly, “I have felt the weight of my soul’s worth, and it is beyond telling.” Can you say that? Can i? What is that, the soul’s worth? What could that be?
Sitting in my office meeting with people day after day struggling with life, what would it mean for me to recognize that, no matter how scarred and damaged and suffocated their souls may be, they are still beautiful and the reason for the Great Invasion brought by Christ? I wonder, what would this mean to our ministries and our churches if we were to really believe it. What would it do to our personal lives, our interactions with God and with one another.
