Cultivating “Negative Capability”
What is “negative capability,” and why might God be interested in cultivating it in you? The framework of “two halves of life” is once again instructive here.
During the first half of life, Christian workers of all stripes are often attracted to and motivated by answers, clarity, and certainty. The world appears mostly black-and-white, our vision is clear, and the ministry at hand feels within reach, even if somewhat daunting. But as years of service pile one upon the other, many of us find that life and ministry—even faith itself—are far more mysterious than we had once imagined. Much to our initial chagrin, we discover that black and white aren’t the only two colors after all, and that shades of grey seem to be multiplying before our very eyes at an increasingly alarming rate.
Our once-impenetrable realms of answers become infiltrated by questions. Our iron-clad certainty by unnerving doubt. Blissful light by uninvited darkness. And in a moment of unfettered honesty, we finally ask ourselves, “Wasn’t this life of wholehearted kingdom service supposed to lead from one glory to the next? Why isn’t the script playing out as I thought it would? How can I escape this darkness that seems to be closing in on me?”
Enter Gregory of Nyssa, that early church father who penned, among many other Christian classics, the Life of Moses. In it he points out this startling truth:
“Moses entered the darkness, and then saw God in it.”
Though “God is Light,” his dwelling place is paradoxically “in deep darkness,” as Gregory and many other saints have both discovered and struggled to articulate. In the second half of life, we begin to intuit the wisdom of such words, even if their full comprehension remains tantalizingly out of reach. We begin to find God, not only in answers, certainty, and unabated light, but also in questions, mystery, and what John of the Cross called God’s “luminous darkness.”
And so we return to the concept of “negative capability,” a term coined by early nineteenth century British poet John Keats. In his words, “Negative capability…[is being] capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts without any irritable reaching after facts and reason.” Only those who have sensed the Spirit’s invitation into the second half of life will detect God’s fingerprint on these words. And it was only a well-cultivated “negative capability” in Moses, I dare say, that enabled him to enter the darkness and find God there.
In time, the ongoing cultivation of such “negative capability” enables us, not only to endure seasons of ambiguity, paradox, and mystery, but to cherish, often at great cost, that of God’s presence that can only be found in them. Or to borrow the words of Kathleen Norris, “Drawing both from our reason and our capacity for negative capability, faith might help us see that our most valuable experiences are always those which leave us, as the sculptor and critic Edward Robinson has said, with ‘an unaccountable remainder…2 plus 2 equals 5 experiences’ that remind us that our relationships with each other and the world are more mysterious than we usually care to admit.”
The Second Half Collaborative (2HC) seeks to provide a safe space for those in whom God seems to be cultivating such “negative capability,” one that somewhat counterintuitively, though no less effectively, aids and abets second-half-of-life flourishing and fruitfulness in the servant of Christ.
Have you sensed God fashioning “negative capability” in you? If so, prayerfully consider joining 2HC. It may just be a means by which the Spirit wants to continue his good work in you!