Chittister - Between the dark and the daylight : embracing the contradictions of life

Praise for
B ETWEEN THE D ARK AND THE D AYLIGHT

Here, at last, is a book for those ready to make peace with the unsolvable riddles of present-day life. Why are we so lonely in a world of so little privacy? Why do we work so hard for control we can never achieve? Whether the problem that keeps you up at night is how to find safety in a world that is always changing or how to deal with guilt in a life that is far from perfect, Sister Joan has good news for you: these are the questions that make you human, and can make you more joyously human if you choose.

Barbara Brown Taylor, author ofLearning to Walk in the Dark

The great spiritual writers knew that truth can be found most often in paradoxes and contradictions. To find light you must go through darkness. To seek knowledge you must admit that you know little. To live you must die to self. Joan Chittisters new book explores the meaning of some of the most profound spiritual paradoxes and, in the process, helps the reader find her or his way to new life. Sister Joan has long been one of my favorite spiritual writers, and with this new book she has given us more of her trademark common sense, insight, and wisdom.

James Martin, SJ, author ofJesus: A Pilgrimage

As always, Joan has put her finger and her pen to the right and needed words. She well describes those liminal spaces wherein human beings best grow and become their best selves. She could never describe them so well if she had not walked through them herself.

Richard Rohr, OFM, founder of Center for Action and Contemplation and author ofFalling Upward

This little book is an alarm clock for the spiritual journey. It wakes the reader up to the fact that our life journey is unique for each of us, yet we are twined together in the presence of God in every moment. Joan brings her years of faithful monasticism to open up the painful contradictions of our time. Wake up! The time is NOW!

Simone Campbell, SSS, executive director of NETWORK, author ofA Nun on the Bus

Joan Chittister has written what promises to be a spiritual classica guide for those of us who have ever spent sleepless nights wrestling with our own frustrations, fear of the unknown, and pain of loss and separation. Through the wisdom of a woman who has experienced all of these, we learn how doubt can lead to greater clarity, hopelessness to new life, and solitude to deeper connection. In short, how the paradoxes that confound life can transform it. This is the most poetic writing yet from a woman who is a modern prophet.

Judith Valente, author ofAtchison Blueand correspondent forReligion & Ethics Newsweeklyon PBS

This book could be life-changing for many. Joan Chittister highlights the paradoxes and contradictions of life, things that we experience as obstacles, as life-denying, such as loss, confusion, doubt, failure, emptiness, and exhaustion, and shows convincinglythe strength of the book lies herehow each one offers an opportunity for fuller growth. Turning the pages we maybe perceive how much of our life we fail to live, how many opportunities we waste. It is my hope that this book will reach a vast number of people experiencing the pain and splendor of being human. They will be enlightened and comforted.

Ruth Burrows, OCD, author ofEssence of Prayer

In a nutshell, life is best defined as a conundrum. Every high flees the hot pursuit of a low; certainties emerge from the shadows of doubt; endings are invitations to new beginnings. In this beautiful book, Joan Chittister focuses her discerning eye upon these conundrums. Turning the pages is like turning a kaleidoscope of insight because it helps us to see, admire, and appreciate the infinite colors and shapes of life. At times, Between the Dark and the Daylight sparkles with ageless wisdom; at other times it glows like the quiet embers of a best friends advice. This is a book to which you will return over and over, and, each time you do, you will discover new treasures of optimism.

Maura Poston Zagrans, author ofCamerado, I Give You My Hand

Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir

The Fire in These Ashes:
A Spirituality of Contemporary Religious Life

Following the Path:
The Search for a Life of Passion, Purpose, and Joy

For Everything a Season

The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully

Happiness

Heart of Flesh:
A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men

Illuminated Life:
Monastic Wisdom for Seekers of Light

In Search of Belief

The Liturgical Year:
The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life

The Monastery of the Heart:
An Invitation to a Meaningful Life

A Passion for Life: Fragments of the Face of God

A Radical Christian Life:
A Year with Saint Benedict

Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century

Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

Welcome to the Wisdom of the World:
And Its Meaning for You

Wisdom Distilled from the Daily:
Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today

Copyright 2015 by Joan D. Chittister

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Image, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

IMAGE is a registered trademark and the I colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-8041-4094-2
eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-4095-9

Jacket design by Kristen Vasgaard Ingebretson

v3.1

This book is dedicated to Susan Doubet, OSB, because of whom so many of the paradoxes of life become doable, are made livable, disappear.
She certainly makes my life easier.

There is a part of the soul that stirs at night, in the dark and soundless times of day, when our defenses are down and our daylight distractions no longer serve to protect us from ourselves. What we suppress in the light emerges clearly in the dusk. Its then, in the still of life, when we least expect it, that questions emerge from the damp murkiness of our inner underworld. Questions with ringtones that call the soul to alert but do not come with ready resolutions. Questions about life, not about the trivia of dailiness. The kind of questions to which there is no one answer but which, nevertheless, plague us for attention if we are ever to move through the dimness of lifes twists and turns with confidence.

These questions do not call for the discovery of data; they call for the contemplation of possibility.

It is these kinds of questions that beleaguer the soul from one end of life to the other. It is these questions that the great spiritual traditions of every age have always set out to face and tame.

But how does this happen and what does it demand of us if we are to brook the inexorable appearance of these confusions, these tormentors of the spirit, and bend them to the best in us?