Ringing Gongs, Clanging Cymbals, and the Primacy of Love

THE SOUL OF THERAPY KEVIN ANDERSON, PHD

- KEVIN ANDERSON

Q I grew up in a home with clear beliefs about the purpose of life, God, sin, heaven, and hell. But the scary state of the world has me questioning all the religious answers I learned as a child about God, life after death, and the meaning of everything. This feels like a spiritually debilitating way to live, but I can't find my way back to certainty. I've tried discussing this with my therapist, but she just tries to shore up my old beliefs. Do you have any suggestions about how I can go forward from here? -BETH

KEVIN: The first person I thought of when I read your email, Beth, was Mother Teresa. Considered by many to be a living saint before her death in 1997, she privately suffered unrelenting inner darkness, doubt, and spiritual emptiness. Brian Kolodiejchuk, who comments on her private writings in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, wrote that her life of service despite this persistent dark night of the soul made her a "witness to the primacy of love."

As I thought more about your email, I decided to let a few other figures join Mother Teresa on a panel of seven, giving each a turn to respond to what you wrote. The other six are Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel (1928–2016), American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842–1910), Saint Paul (5–64), philosopher of religion Alan Watts (1915–1973), and poets Mary Oliver (1935–2019) and Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926).