Lunar Tide Spirituality (Guest Blog)

This blog is written by a client-friend who has endured enormous hardship and abuse and has found clarity and confidence in herself and in God. Amazing really. Here is part of her story.

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There are many forms of spirituality that scatter the landscape of Christianity. Having at a young age already experienced severe trauma and witnessed the suffering of my mother due to a terminal illness, I was always perplexed by those with a full solar spirituality. Barbara Brown Taylor describes this type of Church:

“You can usually recognize a full solar church by its emphasis on the benefits of faith, which include a sure sense of God’s presence, certainty of belief, divine guidance in all things, and reliable answers to prayer. Members strive to be positive in attitude, firm in conviction, helpful in relationship, and unwavering in faith.” 

I have travelled my own dark night, both spiritually and personally, several times. I learned that my relationship with darkness was safer than another person’s solar spirituality. I have encountered darkness and I have survived.

I would describe my faith as a “lunar tide.” God is the moon, ever present, best seen in the dark. I am the tide being pulled out into the deepest parts of self and then pulled back into the landscape of others. I submit to the ebbs and flows of life by the sheer grit and grace of this lunar pull.

There is a deconstruction of certainty when one is pulled into the deep, tossed around and then pulled onto a new shore. When one has waded into the depths, relationships with others are disoriented, never to find a shared sense of common experience. This only adds to the loss of bearing.

Lunar tide spirituality teaches me about God. He is always there in fullness but, depending on where I am, I may only catch a sliver of Him. If I am in the deep, I may not catch a sighting.

I no longer believe in the safety of my spirituality. I’ve buried too many friends, held suffering babies, journeyed with others through chronic illness, and suffered myself with debilitating depression.

I’ve given up trying to be more spiritual than God. Every pull into the deep has brought me to a new level of embracing my own humanity. That may, in the end, be the grace of this lunar pull.

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