The Whale Swallowed Jonah

The whale swallowed Jonah

or so the story goes ...

Jonah was a good man and a prophet.  He was asked to go to Nineveh to tell the people to repent, but he did not follow through. He ended up swallowed by a whale or so the story goes.  Let's go with it.

If you have ever spent time in what is termed the Dark Night of the Soul, you too may have felt like you had been swallowed whole.  What would you feel like ... damp, disoriented and frightened or would there be comfort in seclusion, invisibility, and nothing but curiosity about possibly being spit out anew by the whale.

Although everything is bright and beautiful on the outside of my self on this wonderful spring day, on the inside, I feel like I have been swallowed by the whale.  For whatever reason, I am filled with darkness as though I have lost sight.  I have tried all day to gather my bearings and determine a destination, but all efforts seem to have failed.  I feel submerged into the great depths of water with an uncomfortable churning like being tossed about in the belly of a whale. 

Can it be that I am the whale and I have unknowingly swallowed my self into seclusion?  This is not an exhilirating feeling nor an insightful venture.  I sense it is something to be endured until the old me is ready to be spit out and discarded, making way for a brighter new me. 

I don't remember what exactly happened to Jonah, and I most certainly don't know what is happening with me.  I am ready, however, to return to a firmly grounded sanctuary inside of me.