One thing lead to another

A few days ago, I stumbled upon this quote from Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964):

"Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."

I didn't remember reading this, or in this form, in her short stories, so I looked it up. I found it in a letter O’Connor wrote in 1955 to a friend (letter available here):

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. A higher paradox confounds emotion as well as reason and there are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive. Witness the dark night of the soul in individual saints. Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.”

The phrase, repeated twice, is ominous. The world seems to be toiling under the same dark night of the soul. I recognised it to be inspired by a poem by St John of the Cross*, even though it is not written verbatim. I'm too tired today to go deeper, so I'll leave you with the quote, the letter, the poem to outlast the night.

Flannery died at the same age I am today. All nights are dark, by definition, but not all of them are dark. Perhaps it is the same with souls, after all.



*Dark Night of the Soul
By St. John of the Cross
Translated by A.Z. Foreman


Once in the dark of night,
Inflamed with love and yearning, I arose
(O coming of delight!)
And went, as no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose

All in the dark went right,
Down secret steps, disguised in other clothes,
(O coming of delight!)
In dark when no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose.

And in the luck of night
In secret places where no other spied
I went without my sight
Without a light to guide
Except the heart that lit me from inside.

It guided me and shone
Surer than noonday sunlight over me,
And led me to the one
Whom only I could see
Deep in a place where only we could be.

O guiding dark of night!
O dark of night more darling than the dawn!
O night that can unite
A lover and loved one,
Lover and loved one moved in unison.

And on my flowering breast
Which I had kept for him and him alone
He slept as I caressed
And loved him for my own,
Breathing an air from redolent cedars blown.


And from the castle wall
The wind came down to winnow through his hair
Bidding his fingers fall,
Searing my throat with air
And all my senses were suspended there.

I stayed there to forget.
There on my lover, face to face, I lay.
All ended, and I let
My cares all fall away
Forgotten in the lilies on that day.

Here is the source for the poem.