Mid-Faith Crisis

Wandering in a Spiritual Desert

The newly-sainted Mother Teresa famously experienced a sprirtual dry spell for 50 years. In 2007, her private letters revealed that she felt that God had abandoned her. “If I ever become a saint—I will surely be one of ‘darkness,’” she wrote in September of 1959.  Some say it’s like the common cold, or a run-of-the-mill dry spell in an intimate relationship. There are times when people of faith feel, for a while, far from God. Former NPR religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty sits down with two spiritual scholars to talk about their own experiences with “the dark night of the soul” and how they get through it.  Featuring Barbara Bradley Hagerty, author of Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of MidlifeKathleen Norris, author of Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life and Father James Martin, Jesuit priest and author of My Life with the Saints.

Learning to Love in the Dark Night of the Soul

Fear of the dark… many of us remember that feeling from childhood. As we get older, we can become fearful of other kinds of darkness: the emotional blackout of depression, or the spiritual gloominess of doubt. Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Learning to Walk in the Dark, offers a different way of looking at darkness, not as something to be feared, but as something to be embraced.

Shalom: Incurably, Miserably Religious

Shalom Auslander has got a bone to pick with God. Raised an Orthodox Jew, he reflects on what he learned about the Big Man Upstairs – an angry god who writes rules, punishes you for eating a cheeseburger, and walks around drunk in His underwear. From 2008. Shalom is author of Foreskin’s Lament: A Memoir.


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