From Purgation to Illumination

[Photo Credit: Marek Studziński]

On the last evening of my second marriage, my wife stood in the doorway of the study. I turned in my chair to face her. "If you're going," she said, "then you need to go now. I mean, right now."

In that instant, the world dropped away beneath me and I fell into a dark, dizzying, disorienting void. I felt like I was dying. Convulsive sobs overtook me as I drove away, forcing me to pull over and yield to them. I had no idea how all this was going to play out, and I certainly possessed no wisdom about what any of it meant. I knew only that there would be a lot of pain for a very long time. And there was.

When we're in the midst of a life-changing experience, we rarely know in the moment what it means. We only know that things will never be the same again. What those things will become--what we will become--that's still ahead of us. There is only the next step, and then the next, on what feels like an endless path carrying us toward some new, unknown destination.

What I could not have known, as I drove away from the family home that night, was that such evisceration is sometimes necessary so we might die to what was and be reborn to what could be. In the language of spiritual growth, it is the stage called Purgation, where the pilgrim is stripped of all false attachments, habits, and idols, whatever blocks us from becoming the people we were meant to be. In contemporary soul work, it is sometimes described as a 'descent,' where the ego must suffer a deadly blow in order to be dethroned so that it learns to assume a support role to the demands of the soul.

In Classic Western spirituality, if we stay the course and embrace the darkness, Purgation will eventually give way to Illumination, where things suddenly become clear, where meaning and significance emerge out of the fog, and where language, both symbolic and literal, can be summoned to help us give voice to the experience. Carl Jung mused that we don't so much "solve" our problems as we "outgrow" them. This would be true of Illumination. Moving on from the disorientation of painful moments, we experience a new sense of integration and grace, even as we look back, wondering, "What the hell was all that about?!"

Spiritual director and educator Sarah Donnelly grew up believing that if she was a good Christian girl, God would protect her. But God didn't. As a woman, Sarah felt undervalued within the Catholic Church, for which she worked. As a daughter, she couldn't bind up her parents' unravelling marriage. And then, she lost her new love to a car accident, which killed him instantly and put her into months of excruciating recovery. Others prayed on her behalf through the worst of it, because she was too bewildered and too disillusioned to pray herself. She was lost ... but she was soon to be found.

Her rebirth came, first, with a promising new relationship; then, with a series of ecumenical ministries where her abilities were honoured; and, eventually, with the blossoming of the gifts with which she now blesses the world: offering spiritual accompaniment to people struggling with loss and transition; directing a virtual retreat centre known as the Spirit River Community; and co-founding "Growing in Wisdom," an online ministry of support and affirmation among those who are ageing.

Sarah's losses still haunt her. But she also sees how they have transformed her, opening doors of new possibility, as she continues to grow into the person she was created to be, the person the world needs her to be. As she witnessed the changes within herself, she recognized, too, the changes within her concept of the Divine. God may not protect us, as Christian contemplative, James Finley, has said. But God does sustain us. And that, Sarah now feels, makes all the difference.

To hear my conversation with Sarah for my podcast, The Mystic Cave, please click on the Play button, below. For links to her work, follow the More Info button to the show notes.