If you find Darkness, don’t back off

How two hearts were broken by fear

I was 25 years old and doing a week’s retreat in a female Trappist monastery. I was a postulate to enter a Trappist Monastery and went regularly to do retreats while the order arrived in Venezuela. I stayed in the guest house outside the compound. The monastery was set on the arid hills of Humocaro Alto, a small town in Lara State in north-central Venezuela. A warm and dry land with lots of silence and 70 kilometers from any midsize town.

El Sabor de la Amistad, Carlos Eduardo

The silence was interrupted only by the bells announcing the coming of liturgy hours. Seven times a day from 3:45 in the morning until 19:40 in the afternoon the community met at the choir to sing and pray. The nights were truly awesome, there was no light-pollution, and I could see the Milky Way in all its glory. About three days before I was due to leave, I asked permission to fast for a couple of days. I was told I could not do a 100% fast, that the nuns would give me a loaf of bread in the morning and a broth with veggies in the afternoon. I didn’t touch the bread but did have the broth for dinner before going to bed.

I decided to read only one book throughout my retreat, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. I wrote, walked, and prayed most of the day. I was in a peaceful state. I prayed to God to guide me into what I was supposed to do so I could be one with Him. On the second day of the fast, waiting for the ninth-hour liturgy (about 3pm) I was pacing in front of the guest house. On the ground I saw a huge ant hill, about 23cm high, some 40cm in circumference and a hole on top of the hill some 4cm wide. It was the home of a Bachaco colony. These are brown ants a little less than 1cm long with a huge head and antennae. There were many dozens of ants taking small rocks from inside the hill and placing them on the base outside. They all worked harmoniously enlarging and building their home underneath. And lo and behold, there was one ant that was doing just the opposite; it was carrying a rock from outside, pulling it up the hill and dropping it in the hole inside the colony. I could not believe my eyes. He went back down the hill and repeated the process. The ant was carrying rocks larger than the ones that working ants were taking out. The ant then carried a large rock, one that it struggled to pull up the hill. It lost its grip and the rock rolled down once, it was just too heavy. The ant went back to get it and again pulled it up the hill to throw it inside the hole of the hill.

I was absorbed with the sight. I was one meter away, not wanting to interfere with what I was seeing. I could not believe my eyes. What in the world is this ant doing? Why is it doing it?

All of a sudden, I beheld a vision in front of my eyes. It was like a dream, but I didn’t close my eyes. The vision I saw was a huge hole on the ground. Like an entrance to a huge cave on the ground. It was dark inside; I could not see anything but the entrance of this hole. Then I heard a soft kind voice that said in Spanish: salta y confia en mi (EN: jump and trust me). I knew it was the voice of Jesus. I was stunned. Then I heard the voice again. It was an invitation, not a command, it was kind and very subtle. I was experiencing the voice through my whole body. I’ve been impetuous and daring all my life, so I jumped with enthusiasm. Immediately I found myself in front of a full-length mirror looking at my reflection. I had a mask on my face; my right hand reached to the left side of my face and took the mask off. And there was another mask underneath. I didn’t recognize what the mask represented. It wasn’t my face. So, with the left hand I reached the right side of my face and peeled that mask off. I began to do this over and over again. It seemed it didn’t have an end; every time there was a new mask underneath I didn’t recognize, and I’d tear it off of my face. A terror began to erupt from inside me. I shook my head trying to wake up out of the vision. I was hyperventilating. My whole body was trembling, like when you wake from a terrifying nightmare.

Three years before

I was in university and had already been awakened a year before by my mentor, the Humanities Dean and professor Stuart Horn. I almost didn’t sleep or eat, I was so absorbed in reading Plato and Socrates, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, William Blake, Ortega y Gasset, Ernst Cassirer, Ralph W. Emerson, Roszak, and when not reading, I wrote.

I then met the most beautiful woman; she was a freshman and a fellow student in a sociology class at my university. She was kind, funny, beautiful, smart, and much more… everything I thought valuable and attractive in a woman. She had a boyfriend and she wasn’t available.  I made her laugh and blush too and we became good friends.

The six students in the class, that we were both part of, were going to go to Mexico for five weeks and each student was going to stay in a family’s home and work and study in a small town that was far from everywhere. Nuestra Señora de Chalchihuites was 160km from Durango and 220km from Zacatecas in Mexico. There was more than an hour on a dirt road to get there and newspapers and magazines only came on Fridays. So, all of us got to spend a great deal of time together.

To make a long story short, everything seemed impossible for us, her family adored her boyfriend; he was best friends with her brothers and supposedly a perfect match for her. I, on the other hand, was tangled in a romantic affair with a gorgeous professor at the university. However, when we arrived in Mexico our relationship exploded into a marvelous experience of affection, interchange of ideas, trust, and meaningful connection between us both. I believe it was the first time I fell completely and devoutly in love.

Leaving the university and going back to Caracas

When we both came back to the US, we began a deep and meaningful relationship. I shared with her my classes of humanities and introduced her to my mentor. We began to go to an Ashram I attended, meditate, read together, and I even helped her with the studies she found difficult. We spent as much time together as we could and loved each other profoundly.

Venezuela then had monetary exchange control for over three years. My father sent me a check for seven thousand dollars and said it was the last check he could send. It was the last amount he could get legally; he did not vouch for exchanging dollars in the black market, he believed it was dishonest to do so. I used it to pay for my studies and worked in anything and everything I could to earn my keep and pay for my expenses.

All of it had not swayed my determination to seek God. Actually, in all of my loving relationship, it had grown and had become a great quest for me. I believe my beloved girlfriend was attracted to me because of that. So, after the money I gave to the university ran out, I had no way to stay, study while paying for it with my work, and on top of it all, my visa needed to be renewed.

Against all my wishes I had to go back to Venezuela and leave the love of my life and a life that was plentiful in more ways than I can enumerate.

The best and worst part is to come, and to do justice to what is one of the greatest lessons in my life, and hopefully it can be helpful to you also, I need to make a pause.

…to be continued.

COMING UP NEXT WEDNESDAY

You cannot run from the light.