[Practical Spirituality: A Blog by Wes Eades] Another Quote from Gerald May

[Practical Spirituality]

I've been consumed with a presention on ethics I'll be offering to the Heart of Texas Counseling Association in a couple of weeks, and so blogging has, once again, fallen to the wayside.


However, I wanted to let you in on these words from Gerald May (the formatting is mine):


[The dark night of the soul experience] liberates desire by diminishing attachment.
The immediate result is expansion of human freedom.
Freedom, however, is not an end in itself.
It is not just freedom from something;
it must also be freedom for something.


In the spiritual life, freedom is for nothing other than love.


Human beings exist because of love,
and the meaning and goal of our lives is love.


In Christian understanding, every-thing that is authentic in the spiritual life points toward the increasing fulfillment of the two great commandments:
to love God and
other people
in a completely unfettered way.


Liberation from attachment is only a means to this end.


Gerald May, The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth, p. 98

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Posted By Practical Spirituality to Practical Spirituality: A Blog by Wes Eades at 3/25/2008 06:02:00 AM