Evanescence and the Dark Night of the Soul

The Christian crossover band Evanescence has a new album.  They are one of my favorite modern groups, and a real departure from the 80’s metal I usually listen to.  I find Amy Lee to be an incredible singer, and I really appreciate the deft and subtle way in which they work Christian themes of hope and redemption into the usual brooding themes of goth music.

I have not heard the whole album yet (it came to my attention too late for me to ask Santa for a copy), but one song has gotten some airplay here”  My Heart Is Broken:

Here are the lyrics:

I will wander ’til the end of time, torn away from you.

I pulled away to face the pain.
I close my eyes and drift away.
Over the fear that I will never find
A way to heal my soul.
And I will wander ’til the end of time
Torn away from you.

My heart is broken
Sweet sleep, my dark angel
Deliver us from sorrow’s hold
(Over my heart).

I can’t go on living this way
But I can’t go back the way I came
Chained to this fear that I will never find
A way to heal my soul
And I will wander ’til the end of time
Half alive without you

My heart is broken
Sweet sleep, my dark angel
Deliver us

Change – open your eyes to the light
I denied it all so long, oh so long
Say goodbye, goodbye

My heart is broken
Release me, I can’t hold on
Deliver us
My heart is broken
Sweet sleep, my dark angel
Deliver us
My heart is broken
Sweet sleep, my dark angel
Deliver us from sorrow’s hold

In listening to this song I was reminded of St. John of the Cross and his poem The Dark Night of the Soul, especially the first few verses:

1. One dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings
– ah, the sheer grace! –
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
– ah, the sheer grace! –
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

3. On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

While John is concerned with the Dark Night, he wants to lead his reader to the far side:  the bright sweet dawn of union with God.  In this song, however, I hear the voice of someone who is in the middle of the Dark Night:  not sure how to go forward:  “I will wander ’til the end end of time.”   On one level unwilling to give up the quest– “I can’t go back the way I came“–but at the same time trapped in despair and looking desperately for a way out:  “I can’t go on living this way.”

The repeated refrain “My heart is broken/ Sweet sleep, my dark angel/ Deliver us from sorrow’s hold” suggests that despair is dominating.  There are overtones of self-destruction, calling sleep “my dark angel.”     But the last verse, Change – open your eyes to the light/ I denied it all so long, oh so long/
Say goodbye, goodbye,” despite the following refrain, suggests that some hope still abides.

This seems to me to be the essence of the Dark Night of the soul: to know, intellectually, that you are loved, but to feel no love at all.   To feel broken, incomplete, but knowing only the painful emptiness and finding nothing that can fill it.    To continue onward when, as Dorothy Day said, only the will remains.  Such a trial, but what a reward.  The temptation to turn back must be incredible; the fear of starting down this road is almost insurmountable.