Chapter 23

   ". . . for the senses remain in a state of aridity, . . . ."

    There are two classes of men who find this statement  - of John of the Cross, from the Living Flame - difficult to deal with. The first are the so-called rationalists, who try to dismiss the extraordinary psychological behaviour of mysticism from the thought processes of the mankind they are trying to impress with their philosophies and inexperience. The others, for much different reasons, are the mystics themselves, any time they find aridity interfering with some work or project they think of as worthwhile, previously inspired by God, or some person they have reason to think well of, as even perhaps wiser than they are.
  
    Aridity comes in degrees, of course: sometimes very subtle, sometimes quite the opposite. It can be brief, or it can be mightily extended, even running as a continuous programme for days upon end. At its first onset, especially in someone totally uninstructed in its ways and means, it is even unrecognizable, and likely to be put down as being some sort of affliction of the body or mind, or perhaps the emotions and or the nervous system. And even if it recurs again and again, at least in its milder forms, the recipient can still be quite unaware of its true nature, and even more unaware of its significance to his or her destiny.
 
     It is not of itself pleasant, being no kind of consolation whatsoever except in retrospect, when the soul realizes that it has given him some small share in the sufferings of Christ, although this satisfaction is more likely to show up once the soul has returned to consolation or at least a lack of the long list of contradictions and afflictions aridity invariably brings with it. Perhaps, however, we can say that a very mature soul could feel some rejoicing at the same time as the aridity makes its appearance.
  
    On his way north that summer, however, Toby Skinner was by no means a master of contemplation, and his continuous aridities were in no way manageable. There was no such thing in this episode as complete relief, as he had been used to throughout the previous months, and the temporary easings off were never for very long, and hardly complete. Nothing he looked at, nothing he read, nothing he could think of was any help at all. The dull ache - which was only one of the names to be given to it - in varying degrees of discomfort, simply, ruthlessly, persisted. There was no romance in the passing countryside, there was no romance in the towns, which always before, from car or train, he had thoroughly enjoyed seeing. Nature herself had no power to console or interest him, and a national magazine lying on the back seat of the car bit into his brain like a snake resenting that it had been picked up. There was not much sun on the second day of the journey, but when it came out it was no comfort, nor did the rain, which he had always accepted as part of the drama of a given day, render any consolation.
 
     In all that section of the trip only one thing of pleasant interest ever afterward returned to his memory. Perhaps a little contrite over his aggression with the Thirty Nine Articles, the Brig referred to a story he knew from China, from some knowledge he had of the Anglican mission field there. In the heat of the summer in some major city, it had been necessary for the Anglican clergy to take their wives and children to the cool climate of the hills, while the Catholic priest, without such appendages, stayed down in the sweltering town with his flock. How like the Brig, to be fair, Toby thought, and this was  a more interesting story than anything in the national magazine.
  
    Would it have eased his agonies if he had actually been aware of the mystics and their written works? How could it actually be that someone had been experiencing, for years, the milder forms of the extraordinary life, and yet was not at all intellectually informed about his own history? Especially if that someone were so extraordinarily fond of reading? I mean, John of the Cross makes it all so plain, especially in the Dark Night.

    "In poverty, and without protection or support in all the apprehensions of my soul - that is, in the darkness of my understanding and the constraint of my will, in affliction and anguish with respect to memory, remaining in the dark in pure faith, which is dark night for the said faculties, the will alone being touched by grief and afflictions and yearnings for the love of God . . . ."

    This is from Book Two, where the real mayhem shows up, and is obviously closer to the sheer brutality of the spiritual life's crueller moments than what I started with above, although that is very useful and to the point as well, if only because the saint chose, from experience, the verb remain, that is, the aridity goes on and on until God chooses when it will take a hike. Now in his earlier days, the actual agony of the aridities was, comparatively speaking, milder, and of shorter duration, except in the instance of those which, while not painful, definitely made him incapable of reading with professional effect in any subject that was of no substantial use to his vocation. Thus, although he had passed his law exams, he knew he was not at all the scholar he had expected to be, whereas when he abandoned the legal texts for the social sciences, and then philosophy, his appetite soared and his mind leapt like a frisking colt, day after inspired day, hour after hour. In a sense, the aridity against the law, perhaps more like a spell of the prayer of quiet rather than aridity, all those months and months of it, had been more an introduction to the contemplative life than an out and out affliction. At least in comparison to what he was dealing with now. Having that sensation had never bothered him in the company of his peers, neither his fellow law students or his friends, but now, in company he only felt like crawling away to be by himself, like a dying animal.
 
     And so it went, the Friday, the Saturday, and the Sunday until they arrived at their destination a couple of hours before dinner. Having more people to relate to somewhat loosened the ache in his mind, and he was not at all tempted be unpleasant, but neither had he ever known an arrival in a new place that held so little interest for him. What had he done?
 
     None of the texts I have quoted here were known to him then, nor would they be for a full year, so Toby was thoroughly vulnerable to the kind of self-blame that comes to the mystic in early stages, who can think of the loss of consolation only as a punishment. That is, he does not see it as a necessary correction of the crudeness of soul that is the lot of all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, with their inborn utter inability to see into Paradise or anything faintly resembling it - unless God grants them such a favour now and then - but automatically assumes he's being scolded, because he's been bad, or at least inexcusably stupid. And, to the great amusement of the angels and souls in Heaven, Toby was the last young man on earth to naturally realize what a long term project God made the training of a contemplative soul. In all the normal processes of his schooling, he had been a quick study of anything that caught his interest, and certainly so far he had never met anyone who could advise him from experience that the contemplative schools graduated no youngsters.
 
     In all his week in the Peace country, he had in fact only one conversation that made him feel totally at home with himself, and that he had on his first day, talking to the head of the house that would put him up for the two nights before the room in his boarding house was free. That man was the neighbour of his boss, and a middle-aged German who in the middle of the 'Thirties has discerned what the Nazis were up to, and had emigrated to Canada with his wife and the beginning of his family, eventually four children.
 
     In the North, he had found work and land - Toby and the householder were looking out over his ample garden as they talked - and when the war broke out, he had joined the Canadian Intelligence Corps as an interpreter. His wife was Lutheran, but he and his children were Catholic, and Toby found in him more solid evidence that he had made the right choice a few weeks earlier when he marched down to the nearest parish church in Point Grey and started to make inquiries. In all his short stay in the Peace country, those moments in the garden had seemed the most natural, the most peaceful.The man showed him two sterling silver tablespoons his commanding officer had given him as a souvenir, for helping discover a cache of valuables the retreating Germans had buried in the ground outside the officers' mess.
  
    That was on the Sunday. On the Monday he went to work, met the others in the small office and spent the day working through columns of figures. He realized he was not especially happy, but he could take some satisfaction in being useful, and he had always been at home with numbers. But the hours dragged and he wished he was free to read and write.
  
    Tuesday was the anniversary of Confederation, and a holiday. Toby had already been scheduled to participate in a relevant golf tournament. He didn't play? That was all right, he could keep score. They had need of a score-keeper, and that way he could meet more of the locals. But Tuesday was perhaps his worst day so far. His head simply raged, all day, and his only relief was the thought of the Dominion Day party in the evening, in the town armouries. When it was realized he was musical, quickly after he had arrived in town, it was insisted he be a guest and bring his banjo.
 
     At the armouries, he was  fine. For one thing, he had a lot of pleasant memories of his time with armouries, and more important, he was successful as an entertainer. His song bag seemed to contain a lot of familiars and the day had done no arm to his voice. He could feel he was giving something to
the community which was truly himself. He avoided being lionized, because that aspect of the entertainment business disturbed him, but he received invitations to help out with the scouts, and join the theatre club. The people were quite lovely, much better company, he found, than the golfers.
As chaplain to the local reserve unit, the Catholic priest was present at the celebration, and Toby invited himself to a meeting. The priest said he was available the following evening.