It is easier than we think to use spirituality to keep at bay what spirituality will one day make us face head-on: our own personal struggles. The threads of Providence are braided right into the knots of our own aversion, despair, depression, and panic. Insofar as we discover the Life (Jn 14:6) that is revealed on the contemplative path, we will encounter at some point the dark side of the emotions. Living through, praying in the midst of, and ultimately seeing through our emotions is crucial to learning what this ordeal has to teach. This is not to say that our emotions are not real. They are just not real in the way we normally think they are. Our emotions are transparent to the Light that grounds them.
Martin Laird
A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness and Contemplation
