A society is like an individual: in the face of a dark night it can either become defensive and avoid the challenge of new life, or it can reform itself and discover in the darkness where it has gone wrong.
Related Quotes
16. HEALING SOCIETIE’S SOUL
“A society is like a person. It has a special history, certain inclinations, fears, hopes, and habits. A culture can get depressed and harbor old angers. A society has a personal history that needs sorting and clearing out, and it can always use some good therapy.
Your dark night is forcing you to consider alternatives. It is taking you out of the active life of submission to alien goals and purposes. It is offering you your own approach to life. You can sit with it and consider who you are and who you want to be. You can be fortified by it to stand strong in your very existence. You can be born again, not into an ideology that needs your surrender, but into yourself, your uniqueness, your God-given reality, the life destined for you.
We can’t understand what is happening to us, and if we are in the habit of always wanting to know what is going on, this aspect of the dark night will be maddening. We can find meaning in these times of change, but we have to think differently about our lives, be less psychological in our approach, and more philosophical and spiritual.
A dark night can toughen you and steel you, helping you to be a real presence in your world. In the realm of the soul, most of us are wimps at first. We have to deepen and strengthen our outlook and style.
It helps to know who is living through you at any given moment. The less you know about it, the more it dominates and keeps you from other adventures.