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REACHING OUT
St. AUGUSTINE'S CHURCH NEWSLETTER SPRING 2006 NO 61
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
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It's not very good news, I'm afraid,' said the
cardiac consultant at Frimley Park, 'you have
severe heart disease,' not what I was hoping to
hear but after a free hospital sandwich the news
didn't seem quite so bad. All those years of
living the high life had, after all, taken their
toll, disbelief gave way to facing the awful
reality when my own doctor said, `Go home and do
nothing,' seven funerals later l was still
standing, although I must admit it was a bit
like playing Russian roulette! Despite all
we hear, the National Health Service pulled out
all the stops; the same day that I saw the
consultant at St George's Tooting there was a
message to say if you come back this afternoon
we'll do the operation first thing tomorrow, in
my case urgent obviously meant urgent. Just as
well I'd bought those new Calvin Klein pyjamas
the week before, no time for jobs to be done or
meaningful conversations with my nearest and
dearest, a last meal and a mad dash back up the
A3! Lying awake in my hospital bed that
night, alone with my thoughts, all those
episodes of Holby City came flooding back, could
my lady consultant, every bit as attractive as
Connie, do the business? Earlier on she
had pointed her well manicured finger at me and
assured me she could, but in the darkness l
wasn't so sure. Even as a priest, prayer
wasn't easy. God's will be done, but what
if...? Then all I could do was think of all the
people who would be loving and caring about me
while my heart was being operated on, `you'll be
all right`, God's word or not, all those
assurances were good enough for a simple soul
like me, and, like crossing the Red Sea, I came
out safe on the other side.
What a precious gift life is, I thought I was
invincible and would go on for ever, I have now
been reminded of my mortality. However
it’s not how long our life is its how we use it
that counts! Like Scrooge, the ghosts of
my dark night vanished, I woke up this past
Christmas with a fresh determination to make the
most of the time left to me. Death will
come in the end, it comes for all of us, when it
does will there be only darkness or can we
believe there is something else? That was
the stark reality I struggled with during my
dark night of the soul in a hospital bed.
As Easter approaches l am reminded of that dark
night Jesus spent in the garden of Gethsemane,
he has trod the same path as each of us, he had
his doubts too. Could he face the
darkness? He could and he did, he showed
us that the darkness can be conquered, death is
not the end in God's love story, beyond the
cross is a brighter dawn in another garden,
where there lies an empty tomb. Snuffed out like
a candle or the bright promise of immortality, I
know which I'd rather believe, what about you?
May the risen Lord bless you this Eastertide,
Father Keith
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