Saint John of the Cross and the Dark Night


Note to readers: If you found this page by searching on St. John of the Cross or Dark Night of the Soul, you may be surprised to discover you've found an article on gay consciousness and gay men's spirituality. You may not have even ever considered that such a thing as gay men's spirituality exists. Let me invite you to read on. Even--or especially--if you're not gay, you may find you'll learn something relevant to your quest for spirituality and consolation



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Toby Johnson's books:

Toby's books are available as ebooks from smashwords.com, the Apple iBookstore, etc.


Finding Your Own True Myth - The Myth of the Great Secret III

FINDING YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Great Secret III


Gay Spirituality

GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness


Gay Perspective


GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe


Secret Matter


SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with wonderful "aliens" with an Afterword by Mark Jordan


Getting Life

GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE:  A Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods


The Fourth Quill

THE FOURTH QUILL, a novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil




Two Spirits
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams



charmed lives
CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with Steve Berman and some 30 other writers


Myth of the Great Secret


THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell



In Search of God


IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey



Unpublished manuscripts


About ordering


Books on Gay Spirituality:

White Crane Gay Spirituality Series


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  Toby has done five podcasts with Harry Faddis for The Quest of Life

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  Articles and Excerpts:

Review of Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness


Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco"


About Liberty Books, the Lesbian/Gay Bookstore for Austin, 1986-1996


The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate


A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality


Why gay people should NOT Marry


The Scriptural Basis for Same Sex Marriage


Toby and Kip Get Married


Wedding Cake Liberation


Gay Marriage in Texas


What's ironic



Shame on the American People


The "highest form of love"


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Gay Consciousness


Why homosexuality is a sin


The cause of homosexuality


The origins of homophobia


Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness


What is homosexuality?


What is Gay Spirituality?


My three messages


What Jesus said about Gay Rights


Queering religion


Common Experiences Unique to Gay Men


Is there a "uniquely gay perspective"?


The purpose of homosexuality


Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality


What the Bible Says about Homosexuality


Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men



Varieties of Gay Spirituality


Waves of Gay Liberation Activity


The Gay Succession


Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian?


The Reincarnation of Edward Carpenter


Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium


Easton Mountain Retreat Center


Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism


The Mysticism of Andrew Harvey


The upsidedown book on MSNBC


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Enlightenment


"It's Always About You"



The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara


Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara


You're Not A Wave



Joseph Campbell Talks about Aging



What is Enlightenment?



What is reincarnation?



How many lifetimes in an ego?



Emptiness & Religious Ideas



Experiencing experiencing experiencing



Going into the Light



Meditations for a Funeral



Meditation Practice



The way to get to heaven



Buddha's father was right



What Anatman means



Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal



The Danda Nata & goddess Kalika



Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva



John Boswell was Immanuel Kant



Cutting edge realization



The Myth of the Wanderer



Change: Source of Suffering & of Bliss



World Navel



What the Vows Really Mean



Manifesting from the Subtle Realms



The Three-layer Cake & the Multiverse


The est Training and Personal Intention



Effective Dreaming in Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven


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Gay Spirituality


Curious Bodies


What Toby Johnson Believes


The Joseph Campbell Connection


The Mann Ranch (& Rich Gabrielson)


Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy


The Two Loves


The Nature of Religion


What's true about Religion


Being Gay is a Blessing


Drawing Long Straws


Freedom of Religion


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The Gay Agenda


Gay Saintliness


Gay Spiritual Functions



The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.


The Sinfulness of Homosexuality


Proposal for a study of gay nondualism


Priestly Sexuality


Having a Church to Leave


Harold Cole on Beauty


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Marian Doctrines: Immaculate Conception & Assumption


Not lashed to the prayer-post


Monastic or Chaste Homosexuality


Is It Time to Grow Up? Confronting the Aging Process


Notes on Licking  (July, 1984)


Redeem Orlando


Gay Consciousness changing the world by Shokti LoveStar


Alexander Renault interviews Toby Johnson



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Mystical Vision


"The Evolution of Gay Identity"


"St. John of the Cross & the Dark Night of the Soul."


Avalokiteshvara at the Baths


 Eckhart's Eye


Let Me Tell You a Secret


Religious Articulations of the Secret


The Collective Unconscious


Driving as Spiritual Practice


Meditation


Historicity as Myth


Pilgrimage


No Stealing


Next Step in Evolution


The New Myth


The Moulting of the Holy Ghost


Gaia is a Bodhisattva


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The Hero's Journey


The Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016


The  Gay Hero Journey (shortened)


You're On Your Own


Superheroes


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Seeing Differently


Teenage Prostitution and the Nature of Evil


Allah Hu: "God is present here"


 
Adam and Steve


The Life is in the Blood



Gay retirement and the "freelance monastery"


Seeing with Different Eyes


Facing the Edge: AIDS as an occasion for spiritual wisdom


What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?


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The Vision


The mystical experience at the Servites'  Castle in Riverside


A  Most Remarkable Synchronicity in Riverside


The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis


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The Techniques Of The World Saviors

Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby


Part 2: The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara


Part 3: Jesus and the Resurrection


Part 4: A Course in Miracles


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The Secret of the Clear Light


Understanding the Clear Light


Mobius Strip


Finding Your Tiger Face


How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated


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Joseph Campbell, the Hero's Journey, and the modern Gay Hero-- a five part presentation on YouTube


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About Alien Abduction


In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke


Karellen was a homosexual


The D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance


Intersections with the movie When We Rise


More about Gay Mental Health


Psych Tech Training


Toby at the California Institute


The Rainbow Flag


Ideas for gay mythic stories


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People


Kip and Toby, Activists


Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.


Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement


About Hay and The New Myth


About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first man to really "come out"


About Michael Talbot, gay mystic


About Fr. Bernard Lynch


About Richard Baltzell


About Guy Mannheimer


About David Weyrauch


About Dennis Paddie


About Ask the Fire


About Arthur Evans


About Christopher Larkin


About Mark Thompson


About Sterling Houston


About Michael Stevens


The Alamo Business Council


Our friend Tom Nash


Second March on Washington


The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement of Spirituality"


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Book Reviews



Be Done on Earth by Howard E. Cook


Pay Me What I'm Worth by Souldancer


The Way Out by Christopher L  Nutter


The Gay Disciple by John Henson


Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry


Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth A. Burr


Extinguishing the Light by B. Alan Bourgeois


Over Coffee: A conversation For Gay Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson


Dark Knowledge by Kenneth Low


Janet Planet by Eleanor Lerman


The Kairos by Paul E. Hartman


Wrestling with Jesus by D.K.Maylor


Kali Rising by Rudolph Ballentine


The Missing Myth by Gilles Herrada


The Secret of the Second Coming by Howard E. Cook


The Scar Letters: A Novel by Richard Alther


The Future is Queer by Labonte & Schimel


Missing Mary by Charlene Spretnak


Gay Spirituality 101 by Joe Perez


Cut Hand: A Nineteeth Century Love Story on the American Frontier by Mark Wildyr


Radiomen by Eleanor Lerman


Nights at Rizzoli by Felice Picano


The Key to Unlocking the Closet Door by Chelsea Griffo


The Door of the Heart by Diana Finfrock Farrar


Occam’s Razor by David Duncan


Grace and Demion by Mel White


Gay Men and The New Way Forward by Raymond L. Rigoglioso


The Dimensional Stucture of Consciousness by Samuel Avery


The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love by Perry Brass


Love Together: Longtime Male Couples on Healthy Intimacy and Communication by Tim Clausen


War Between Materialism and Spiritual by Jean-Michel Bitar


The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal


Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal


The Invitation to Love by Darren Pierre


Brain, Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration by Daniel A Helminiak


A Walk with Four Spiritual Guides by Andrew Harvey


Can Christians Be Saved? by Stephenson & Rhodes


The Lost Secrets of the Ancient Mystery Schools by Stephenson & Rhodes


Keys to Spiritual Being: Energy Meditation and Synchronization Exercises by Adrian Ravarour


In Walt We Trust by John Marsh


Solomon's Tantric Song by Rollan McCleary


A Special Illumination by Rollan McCleary


Aelred's Sin by Lawrence Scott


Fruit Basket by Payam Ghassemlou


Internal Landscapes by John Ollom


Princes & Pumpkins by David Hatfield Sparks


Yes by Brad Boney


Blood of the Goddess by William Schindler


Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom by Jeffrey Kripal


Evolving Dharma by Jay Michaelson


Jesus in Salome's Lot by Brett W. Gillette


The Man Who Loved Birds by Fenton Johnson


The Vatican Murders by Lucien Gregoire


"Sex Camp" by Brian McNaught


Out & About with Brewer & Berg
Episode One: Searching for a New Mythology



The Soul Beneath the Skin by David Nimmons


Out on Holy Ground by Donald Boisvert


The Revotutionary Psychology of Gay-Centeredness by Mitch Walker


Out There by Perry Brass


The Crucifixion of Hyacinth by Geoff Puterbaugh


The Silence of Sodom by Mark D Jordan


It's Never About What It's About by Krandall Kraus and Paul Borja


ReCreations, edited by Catherine Lake


Gospel: A Novel by WIlton Barnhard


Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey by Fenton Johnson


Dating the Greek Gods
by Brad Gooch


Telling Truths in Church by Mark D. Jordan


The Substance of God by Perry Brass


The Tomcat Chronicles by Jack Nichols


10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives by Joe Kort


Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same Sex Love by Will Roscoe


The Third Appearance by Walter Starcke


The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann


Surviving and Thriving After a Life-Threatening Diagnosis by Bev Hall


Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods by Ronald Long

An Interview with Ron Long


Queering Creole Spiritual Traditons by Randy Conner & David Sparks

An Interview with Randy Conner


Pain, Sex and Time by Gerald Heard


Sex and the Sacred by Daniel Helminiak


Blessing Same-Sex Unions by Mark Jordan


Rising Up by Joe Perez


Soulfully Gay by Joe Perez


That Undeniable Longing by Mark Tedesco


Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman


Wisdom for the Soul by Larry Chang


MM4M a DVD by Bruce Grether


Double Cross by David Ranan


The Transcended Christian by Daniel Helminiak


Jesus in Love by Kittredge Cherry


In the Eye of the Storm by Gene Robinson


The Starry Dynamo by Sven Davisson


Life in Paradox by Fr Paul Murray


Spirituality for Our Global Community by Daniel Helminiak


Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society by Robert A. Minor


Coming Out: Irish Gay Experiences by Glen O'Brien


Queering Christ by Robert Goss


Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage


The Flesh of the Word by Richard A Rosato


Catland by David Garrett Izzo


Tantra for Gay Men by Bruce Anderson


Yoga & the Path of the Urban Mystic by Darren Main


Simple Grace by Malcolm Boyd


Seventy Times Seven by Salvatore Sapienza


What Does "Queer" Mean Anyway? by Chris Bartlett


Critique of Patriarchal Reasoning by Arthur Evans


Gift of the Soul by Dale Colclasure & David Jensen


Legend of the Raibow Warriors by Steven McFadden


The Liar's Prayer by Gregory Flood


Lovely are the Messengers by Daniel Plasman


The Human Core of Spirituality by Daniel Helminiak


3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke


Religion and the Human Sciences by Daniel Helminiak


Only the Good Parts by Daniel Curzon


Four Short Reviews of Books with a Message


Life Interrupted by Michael Parise


Confessions of a Murdered Pope by Lucien Gregoire


The Stargazer's Embassy by Eleanor Lerman


Conscious Living, Conscious Aging by Ron Pevny


Footprints Through the Desert by Joshua Kauffman


True Religion by J.L. Weinberg


The Mediterranean Universe by John Newmeyer


Everything is God by Jay Michaelson


Reflection by Dennis Merritt


Everywhere Home by Fenton Johnson


Hard Lesson by James Gaston


God vs Gay? by Jay Michaelson


The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path by Jay Michaelson


Roxie & Fred by Richard Alther


Not the Son He Expected by Tim Clausen


The 9 Realities of Stardust by Bruce P. Grether


The Afterlife Revolution by Anne & Whitley Strieber


AIDS Shaman: Queer Spirit Awakening by Shokti Lovestar


Facing the Truth of Your Life by Merle Yost


The Super Natural by Whitley Strieber & Jeffrey J Kripal


Secret Body by Jeffrey J Kripal


In Hitler's House by Jonathan Lane


Walking on Glory by Edward Swift


The Paradox of Porn by Don Shewey


Is Heaven for Real? by Lucien Gregoire


Enigma by Lloyd Meeker


Scissors, Paper, Rock by Fenton Johnson




Toby Johnson's Books on Gay Men's Spiritualities:




Gay
Perspective cover
Gay Perspective

Things Our [Homo]sexuality
Tells Us about the
Nature of God and
the Universe


Gay Perspective audiobook
Gay Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated by Matthew Whitfield. Click here







Gay
Spirituality cover
Gay Spirituality

Gay Identity and 
the Transformation of
Human Consciousness



gay-spirituality-audiobook
Gay Spirituality   is now available as an audiobook, beautifully narrated by John Sipple. Click here








charmed lives
Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling

edited by
Toby Johnson
& Steve Berman







secret matter
Secret Matter

Lammy Award Winner for Gay Science Fiction

updated







Getting Life
Getting Life in Perspective

A Fantastical Romance





Getting
Life in Perspective audiobook
Getting Life in Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated by Alex Beckham. Click here 






The Fourth Quill

The Fourth Quill

originally published as PLAGUE




johnson-the-fourth-quill-audiobook
The Fourth Quill is available as an audiobook, narrated by Jimmie Moreland. Click here






Two
Two Spirits: A Story of Life with the Navajo

with Walter L. Williams




Two Spirits
audiobookTwo Spirits  is available as an audiobook  narrated by Arthur Raymond. Click here






Finding Your Own True Myth - The Myth of the Great Secret III
Finding Your Own True Myth:
What I Learned from Joseph Campbell

The Myth of the Great Secret III








In
Search of God in the Sexual Underworld
In Search of God  in the Sexual Underworld










The Myth of the Great Secret II

The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell.

This was the second edition of this book.




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Toby Johnson's titles are available in other ebook formats from Smashwords.

This article appeared in the May 2000 issue of GENRE.



Dark Night of the Soul

by Toby Johnson

The notion of the "dark night of the soul" has entered Western culture to refer to a particular kind of emotive/affective state, also called aridity, that supposedly precedes direct mystical experience. It refers generally to the notion that you have to go through a certain amount of suffering before you can realize joy and pleasure. The dark night is characterized by dissatisfaction and boredom with the way normal people live their normal lives. Underlying this dissatisfaction is a "spiritual hunger" for something more than the world offers. This is interpreted as the experience of union with God. While this image applies to all people, it has particularly appropriate application to the experience of gay men, especially spiritually conscious gay men.

 

There is a certain knowingness that goes with being gay, a sense of understanding a hidden dimension of reality that most people don't seem to realize is there. We learn this early in life. At first, it's just in reference to self. That is, we sense, often inchoately, that there's something about ourselves we have to keep secret, something only we (and God) can know. We may develop a magical or religious vision of the world out of this sense of secretness/sacredness.

As we grow older we likely come to understand that what we had understood to be the "secret dimension" was, in fact, the homosexual dimension, and that there have been others before us who've lived lives in secrecy and "darkness" as fellow homosexuals. We become fascinated with the homosexual slant which we--and our fellows--can see throughout history and culture. We want to know who was gay in the past, which movie stars, which politicians and celebrities, shared our secret (often in their own "darkness").

The people we--perhaps too cavalierly--call straight, the "normal" people, may not perceive this hidden dimension at all. There is, after all, no reason for them to mistrust what they're taught by authorities--at least, no reason felt in their flesh. Of course, as they develop and deepen their own psychological/spiritual lives, they too are liable to realize there is a secret dimension. That is, after all, the discovery of all those called "mystics." An important part of the gay contribution may be precisely the revelation of the hidden dimension to life.

To the gay man who can see through the secrecy, the spiritual classic, The Dark Night of the Soul, is an elaborate ruse to disguise a homosexual adventure. In its conceit there is wisdom gay men can appreciate in a way those who don't realize the secret/mystical dimension simply can't.

The book, written by the 16th-century Spanish Carmelite mystic San Juan de la Cruz, is a detailed commentary on a poem called "On a Dark Night." This poem is included in virtually every anthology of religious poetry (e.g. Andrew Harvey's The Essential Mystics). The commentary explains the various images in the poem as allegories for stages in development of the spiritual life. But if you read the poem with gay awareness, it is obviously an account of a homosexual liaison.

 

night sea journeySt. John of the Cross spent a grueling nine months as a prisoner in a  monastery of the Order in Toledo. He was kept locked up because, inspired by his friendship with his fellow reformer, the Carmelite nun Teresa of Avila, he was so insistent that the Carmelite friars practice mortification and austerities.  The other friars had him sent to his cell to keep him quiet. He was flogged in front of the community at least weekly. While locked away, he wrote numerous poems and elaborate commentaries on these poems. Like the spiritual poetry of the Persian Islamic Sufi mystics a few centuries before, St. John's poetry is hotly homoerotic.

"On a Dark Night" describes John's romantic fantasy of running off into the night to meet a lover. "On a dark secret night, starving for love and deep in flame," he begins, "...unseen I slipped away." Wearing a scarf over his face, he fled unseen, climbing down what he called a secret ladder (perhaps a trellis outside his cell?), guided only by the fire burning in his breast.

He goes out to a spot outside the fortress walls of the old medieval walled city of Toledo, a spot which he describes as "a place where no one comes." But there waiting for him is his Beloved. John rhapsodizes: "O night that guided me, O night more lovely than the dawn, O night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!" In the darkness then they make love.

Afterwards, the beloved falls asleep with his head on John's chest. As the wind blows through the cedars overhead, John caresses and fondles him and then falls asleep himself, now with his face lying on his beloved's breast (like his Apostle namesake who lay on the breast of Jesus at the Last Supper).

When the sun rises John wakes feeling that all his cares are gone, and he sees that he and his beloved are lying among a field of lilies.

The allegorical explanation is that this is about the stage of depression and aridity in the religious life, the so-called "dark night of the soul." The secret ladder is living faith; the disguise, the three theological virtues, faith, hope and charity. But that is not what's in the poem! There is nothing about depression or spiritual suffering, much less the theological virtues. It's about sexual passion. Perhaps the lover and beloved represent the soul and Christ, but that is still a homoerotic image.

Perhaps it is all allegory and St. John never left his cell. But it really sounds like he was sneaking out and engaging in 16th Century bush sex, or at least fantasizing it. What was mystical was that he probably was in such a state of religious intensity (and neurotic denial) that he truly experienced the men he was meeting out there in the bushes as palpable manifestations of Christ.

 

The notion of the "dark night of the soul" has entered Western culture to refer to a particular kind of emotive/affective state, also called aridity, that supposedly precedes direct mystical experience. It refers generally to the notion that you have to go through a certain amount of suffering before you can realize joy and pleasure. The dark night is characterized by dissatisfaction and boredom with the way normal people live their normal lives. Underlying this dissatisfaction is a "spiritual hunger" for something more than the world offers. This is interpreted as the experience of union with God.

Images/Christ_of_Saint_John_of_the_Cross

Psychology calls this state depression, though certainly not all depression has such spiritual roots or can be solved by mystical experience. But there is clearly a parallel between the dark night of the soul and the depression of young adulthood with its angst about the meaning of life and the passing of childhood fantasy. In mid-life, this is experienced as the so-called "noonday devil," acedia, the apathy and boredom (not clinical depression) that come from doing the same thing every day and never seeing the world change because of it. This is what mid-life crises are about.

In the dark night, life seems flat because higher consciousness seeks deeper meaning. This is a stage in learning perspective and getting priorities in order. This is a plunging into the depths in order to reform one's personality and self-concept.  (See how Salvadore Dali's painting, The Christ of St John of the Cross, emphasizes perspective.)

The dark night is a common step in coming out as gay. That is, gay men often experience confusion, depression, and loss of social identity as they realize their homosexual orientation. First, perhaps, we sense that something is missing in heterosexuality, we long for something more. Then when we realize what it is we long for, we may feel humiliated or betrayed or at least may feel this is something we must keep secret. Later, often through a life-changing moment of emotional intensity, we come to understand what homosexuality really is. Then the guilt and misconceptions are transformed, and we experience relief and joy. We have gone through the dark night, through the way of purgation, and discovered a whole new world and new self-concept.

What St. John of the Cross was describing as a stage of the spiritual life--perhaps to keep his fellow monks from realizing he was tricking with an hallucinated Jesus out at the cruise park--was not the sadness and unhappiness of depression, but a state of uncertainty and not-knowing. This is a relatively enlightened stage of religiousness. And you find it among many of the mystics. They acknowledge that the spiritual life is not about being right. Rather it is about being in awe before a greater reality that just doesn't fit human ideas, because it is so much bigger, more wonderful, and more immediate.

This embrace of uncertainty is not something you find in popular religion, however. The televangelists never say God is unknowable and religious people ought to give up trying to know who's right and, especially, who's wrong. Just the opposite, they often maintain they themselves know exactly what is in the mind of God, that their translation of the Bible is absolutely true and inerrant, that Church teaching is infallible. No room for uncertainty and unknowing here. Tragically, little room for spiritual growth and enlightenment either!

Not surprisingly, gay men have a special access through the dark night. We go through that uncertainty as a necessary part of being who we are. And thus we potentially see the mystical message behind religion. We potentially discover what John of the Cross was talking about: in every man we meet, especially those we have sex with or fall in love with, we can see Christ. Indeed, this is what "Christ" means: not some Cosmic Pal in the sky who is the founder and CEO of Christianity, but the real divinity of human incarnate life, here and now. As Jesus said, "What you do to the least of my brothers, that you do to Me." And also: "The Kingdom of God is spread across the face of the Earth, and men do not see it." The trick is to open our eyes to see.

The New Age singer Loreena McKennitt, who has put St. John's poem to music, translates his rhapsodizing this way: "O night that joined the lover to the beloved one, Transforming each of them into the other." (You can hear Lorenea McKennet's song on YouTube: The Dark Night of the Soul)

That's a very homosexual take on lovemaking. While heterosexuals do experience love as a reuniting with their "other half" (following Plato's famous image), they generally don't experience transforming into one another. Straight men don't long to experience becoming women during sex; they don't confuse their penis with their partner's vagina. Gay men do. We can experience a blurring of identity in sexplay. In the fire of passion, we can sometimes confuse our own bodies and our beloveds'. We can experience transforming into one another.

More importantly, we can experience sex and lovemaking as an experience of Christ, of God. This is the mystical vision of the dark night.

Once Juan de la Cruz got out of his cell, by the way, by prying open the door to his cell and climbing out a window and down "a secret stair" (?), he continued his efforts to restructure the Carmelite Order according to the "Strict Observance," called "Discalced" (meaning barefoot or shoeless; Discalced Carmelites actually wear sandals, like most other mendicant friars in the Franciscan tradition). He was associated with the very dominant (and big-boned and butch) female saint, Teresa of Avila, who had first gotten the Carmelite nuns to discalce themselves and who had enlisted Juan to bring these reforms to the friars. Especially because of the Bernini sculpture of St. Teresa being pierced in the heart with a flaming arrow wielded by an angel, she has become famous for experiencing prayer-induced orgasm.

 

Remember John wakes to find himself and his Beloved lying in a field of lilies. A beautiful affirmation of love. Also an allusion to one of the loveliest of Jesus's sayings: Consider the lilies of John of the Crossthe field, they neither toil nor spin, yet even King Solomon in all his glory was not adorned as one of them. Do not be anxious therefore. Do not judge.

This is the message of the spiritual teachings: Live here and now. Find the Kingdom of God here and now. See Jesus in everyone you meet. This is not the wisdom of family values and householding which is understandably, desperately concerned with maintaining the status quo, holding on to certainty, protecting the nest for the sake of the children. But precisely because, as gay, we don't fit into the status quo, we don't experience certainty and righteousness, we have available to us the mystical vision of the dark night.

We can open our eyes and see in the darkness.

icon of St John of the Cross © 1991 Br. Robert Lentz, OFM
click on the image to see more Robert Lentz icons
& find ways to purchase reproductions.


Here's a lovely English translation of the poem by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD:


1. One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.
 
2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.
 
3. On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.
 
4. This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.
 
5. O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.
 
6. Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.
 
7. When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.
 
8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.


You can hear Loreena McKennet's song on YouTube

The Dark Night of the Soul



Read  Toby Johnson's review of Queer God de Amor by Miguel H. Díaz, a wonderful book in Catholic mystical theology about John of the Cross and the symbolism of gay/queer/LGBTQ love.




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Toby Johnson, PhD is author of nine books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of his teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and religious problems, four gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality and editor of a collection of "myths" of gay men's consciousness. 

Johnson's book GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness won a Lambda Literary Award in 2000.

His  GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our [Homo]sexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe was nominated for a Lammy in 2003. They remain in print.

FINDING YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Great Secret III tells the story of Johnson's learning the real nature of religion and myth and discovering the spiritual qualities of gay male consciousness.

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