Signposts

When we drive on the freeway or highway, we look for signposts. How far is the next city? When can I expect to see my off ramp? Sometimes our signposts are natural things like mountains, rivers, parks, and the like. It would be nice to have signposts that tell us when we are getting closer to God. Something that says, "God is just around the corner." We go to church hoping that our minister or priest can tell us something useful. We read books like the Bible and religious tracts for the same reason. Many people don't look for signposts because they either don't believe that God is there in the first place, or simply because they think that the task is too difficult. Some of us would rather not look in the first place because we are satisfied that life is okay the way it is. To the Gnostic the signposts are there and are capable of being read and followed. Its just a question of knowing where to look. The life of Saint John of the Cross is a good place to begin your search. He was a Jew who belonged to a family that converted to Christianity. He was ordained as priest in 1567 and planned to join the Carthusian order. Before doing this he traveled to Medina Del Campo where met Saint Teresa de Jesus. Attracted to her work, he stayed to help her until 1577, founding monasteries in the Carmelite order. Some of the Carmelite friars disliked his work and they had him imprisoned in a tiny stifling cell barely large enough for his body. Instead of giving in to despair, he wrote poetry in his captivity, becoming one of the foremost poets in the Spanish language. Ultimately, he was declared to be one of the Doctors of the Catholic Church. Many of his poems were written on the theme of finding a union with God. One of them called the Dark Night of the Soul is especially poinant given his experiences as a prisoner who was roughly treated by his captors. His works have deeply influenced writers such as T.S. Eliot, Edith Stein, and pacifists such as Daniel and Philip Berrigan. Pope John Paul II wrote his theological dissertation on the mystical theology of Saint John of the Cross. If you are interested in searching for God inside yourself, where can you find a better place to start than the poems of Saint John of the Cross? Was he a Gnostic? Of course not, but when we start to search for God, we are all Gnostics. There is no rule that I am aware of that says that you cannot be a Catholic and a Gnostic at the same time. Searching for God is neither a heresy or a sin. It is a way of life and a good one at that.