The Absence

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This topic has 9 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 1 month ago by Peter.

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September 2, 2016 at 8:46 pm #114079

Call Me Ishmael
Participant

Hello!

Perhaps you can tip the balance for me.

Ever since I heard about some of the things Mother Teresa discusses in her private letters regarding—and I paraphrase—“the absence of god, darkness, coldness, and emptiness,” as published in the book “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta” (2009), I have wanted to know her thoughts on the matter. I think I have had some of the same feelings (I KNOW that I have felt a significant “absence” and “silence” where a potential “god” or “gods” are concerned, or more to the point, a higher “guiding force” for lack of a better term, whether that be an internal or an external “force”—the operative word being “higher”), but I won’t know until I have read what she had to say. It’s not that I need her thoughts to confirm my thinking or philosophy on the matter, but I would like to know her perspective, and use it to put my own perspective to the test.

The problem is that she was adamant that her letters should be destroyed and not released to the public.

As a means of empathizing with Mother Teresa’s wishes, I know that I have very, VERY strong desires regarding the disposition of my corpse, and how I do not want a funeral or “memorial” service of any kind, or ANY public notification of my death in any way, which I would like to have respected and fulfilled after I die. But I know that it’s a crap-shoot as to whether the few, if any, who have control over such things, will respect my wishes. I know that I would consider it a betrayal for my desires to be intentionally ignored to fulfill someone else’s selfish wants in the matter. It is in this way that I try to empathize with letter of Mother Teresa’s wishes, although the spirits of our respective wishes deal with entirely different things.

From my perspective, I think Mother Teresa was willfully betrayed by those who published her letters, and I think for me to read her letters would also be a betrayal. But from what I understand, the things she discusses transcend the life and desires of one person; they speak to the struggles of understanding with which much of humanity has dealt throughout its history. I suspect that those who published her letters thought the same, but functionally, isn’t it still a betrayal? If not everyone, doesn’t Mother Teresa, at the very least, deserve to have her wishes respected?

For now, and as has been my position all along, I will respect her wishes, and I will not betray her by reading her letters that she asked to be destroyed. But I still struggle with wanting to know her thoughts.

I appeal to you to suggest a different perspective that I possibly may be overlooking.

Thanks for reading, and for any thoughts you may share.

CMI

September 3, 2016 at 9:29 am #114116

Anonymous
Guest

Dear CMI:

It just occurred to me that by posting here the existence of the book and the title, you advertised to whomever reading this, that her letters have been published. I personally do not wish to read them, but the advertisement may cause someone else to disregard Mother Teresa’s wishes for her letters to be destroyed.

I think it is commendable that you respect the wishes of others following their death. You want your wishes following your death respected and you are offering the same to others. This is Integrity of character.

anita

September 3, 2016 at 10:46 am #114123

Call Me Ishmael
Participant

Dear Anita:

Thank you for your reply.

I hadn’t thought about that; perhaps it would have been wiser for me to have been less accommodating regarding the book’s title. On the other hand, I don’t think that people’s knowledge of the book will, in itself, cause them to disregard her wishes. It may minimally facilitate it, but ultimately they make that decision themselves.

Thank you for your kind words!

CMI

September 3, 2016 at 10:48 am #114124

Anonymous
Guest

You are welcome, CMI.
anita

September 9, 2016 at 11:01 pm #114804

XenopusTex
Participant

In the grand scheme of things, does it matter whether she wanted them destroyed or not? Would it be different if the material was say from an inventor who had come up with life saving technology but wanted it destroyed on death?

September 10, 2016 at 3:51 pm #114846

Call Me Ishmael
Participant

Hi, Xenopus Tex.

Thank you for your reply.

Your analogy frames my quandary in different circumstances. I do not think that Mother Teresa’s—pardon me, Saint Teresa of Calcutta’s—struggle with (what I understand she perceived to be) an absence or abandonment of her God in her life is analogous to life-saving technology, or even something that could be considered to be “soul”-saving. From what I can tell, she did not want her struggles with that absence to be known by others because she did not want those private struggles to be the impetus, however slight they may have been, for someone else to question his or her own faith.

I also understand that her letters were functionally her Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation, a.k.a. Confession, which means that they were subject to the Seal of Confessional, under which it is the duty of the priest who hears the confession not to reveal what he heard. I suggest that the recipient of the letters broke the Seal of Confessional by revealing the letters to others, even if it was to his superior.

My quandary may indeed be wholly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, especially considering that I am not a person of faith, but I still feel an ethical obligation to honor her wishes.

Thank you for your thoughts.

CMI

September 20, 2016 at 8:48 am #115694
Tannhauser
Blocked
“I KNOW that I have felt a significant “absence” and “silence” where a potential “god” or “gods” are concerned, or more to the point, a higher “guiding force” for lack of a better term, whether that be an internal or an external “force”—the operative word being “higher”

I have felt this too. I am now of the opinion that there is no God, only the universe. I came to understand it only after intense physical and mental suffering which utterly and comprehensively destroyed the ‘Loving Father-God’ archetype. I realized that I would have to dig myself out of every hole I fell into in life. That it was futile to expect ‘God the Loving Father’ to intervene. I now place such an archetype alongside Santa Claus, Angels and the Tooth Fairy.

We are on our own. All we can do is be kind to each other and our animal friends.
- This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by Tannhauser.
September 21, 2016 at 12:25 am #115766

XenopusTex
Participant

She lived in what amounted to a cesspool of humanity. Sorry, it is not politically correct to say, but it is the truth.

Not surprising that she would feel that way. Ultimately, she probably didn’t have much choice but to stay the course and continue what she was doing. The one thing about nuns/priests is that they don’t have that many externally marketable skills.

September 27, 2016 at 12:22 pm #116443

Peter
Participant

I have not read the book but recall an article where the letters were used as evidence that Mother Teresa had lost her faith.

Essentially the authors of the article equated doubt and the experiences of absence of G_d’s grace, love, justice, dark night of the soul if you will as the loss of faith.

Perhaps anticipating such misunderstandings a part of the reason that she wished to keep her written struggles to herself.

I disagree with the authors of that article as ‘fear is to courage’ as ‘doubt is to faith’. That it is in times of doubt that we exercise faith, often in the process discovering what or faith. Times of certainty does not require faith.

In her service I do not wonder why Mother Teresa experience times of absence of G_ds grace, justice, love and even doubt as to G_d’s love and goodness. Yet she continued to act and serve ‘as if’. Acting in with certain intention in times of doubt and uncertainty. That is not a contradiction.

The paradox, or is it irony, or is it miracle… that for many of those she served she became the experience of G_d’s presents, grace, goodness… In her experience of absence she became the experience of presents for others!

I find that amazing.

September 27, 2016 at 12:44 pm #116451

Peter
Participant

Tannhauser “utterly and comprehensively destroyed the ‘Loving Father-God’ archetype”
An archetype, among other things, represents the psychological energy behind the symbol. I note you lump Love, God and Father into one archetypal image which may have gotten in your way.

Is it possible that when words like Father are connected to the experience of God that they are intended to be transparent to the transcendent, pointing to more than a reward and punishment theology.

Is it possible that it was right that your expectation of your Father-God image be destroyed, not out of bitterness, but as a door to growth?
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