In her book, Survivor, Christina Crawford writes: “Lost is a place, too.” That’s a deep truth that’s often lost in a world within which success, achievement, and good appearance define meaning and value.
That phrase can teach us that sometimes it’s good to be without success, without health, without achievements to bolster us, without good appearance, and even without meaning. Being down and out, alone, lost, struggling for meaning, and looking bad, is also a valid place to be.
John of the Cross would agree with that. If he was your spiritual director and you explained to him that you were going through a dark, painful patch in life and asked him: “What’s wrong with me?” He would likely answer: “There’s nothing wrong with you; indeed, there’s a lot right with you. You’re where you should be right now: in the desert, letting the merciless sun do its work; in a dark night, undergoing an alchemy of soul; in the garden, sweating the blood that needs to be sweated to live out your commitments.”
He’d also tell you that this can be a good place to be, a biblical and mystical place. That doesn’t make it less painful or humiliating, it just gives you the consolation of knowing that you’re in a valid place, a necessary one, and that everyone before you, Jesus included, spent some time there and everyone, including all those people who seem to be forever on top of the world, will spend some time there too. The desert spares nobody. Dark nights eventually find us all.
In our personal lives, too, we have our good seasons, but we have seasons too where we lose relationships, lose health, lose friends, lose spouses, lose children, lose jobs, lose prestige, lose our grip, lose our dreams, lose our meaning, and end up humbled, alone, and lonely. But that’s a place too. Inside that place, our souls are being shaped in ways we cannot understand but in ways that will stretch and widen them for a deeper love and happiness in the future.
The desert heat of loneliness is helpful in softening the heart, enough at least to let it be painfully stretched. That happens more easily when we’re lost, unsure of ourselves, empty of consolation, aching in frustration, and running a psychic temperature. Not pleasant, but that’s a place too.
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