Balance

Jung said that if one wants to ascend to the heavens he must first descend into the depths. Jung himself was forced to go through a period of psychosis before he could find fulfillment in his life and make progress developing his theories. He himself said that it was only because of those dark times that he was able to achieve the great things he did.

The primary source of this idea–as with so many great ideas–is the archetypal story of Christ who in order to take his place at God’s right hand first had to descend into Hades . It was only through Christ’s death and a time of darkness that the hope of an everlasting life could be brought into the world. Christ could have decided to forgo those trials and sufferings, but out of his vast love for us he endured them and allowed himself to be lost so that we could be found.

But this truth isn’t confined to figures of myth and legend, nor must we look to the great men of modernity like Jung to see it in action: instead this truth plays itself out in the lives of each and every one of us. We all find that it is through the times of greatest darkness and sorrow that we learn to find and appreciate joy. It is possible that there could be joy without suffering, but once having experienced deep sorrow, one finds that joy is something that one notices more, takes for granted less, and feels at a deeper level within one’s soul.

We also find that before we can become wise we me must admit the full nature of our foolishness. We are small and foolish creatures, and we are doomed to live out our folly, repeating the same mistakes, until we can accept that wisdom is far from us. Only from the depths of that foolishness can we even begin to become wise, and the moment that we forget that we are fools, we cease to be wise.

In the same way, in order for us to become righteous we must first admit that we are sinners. In fact, we must actually become sinners for the identity of “sinner” must be brought into the field of the Ego–that is our sense of self. We must allow the reality of our sin to replace the firmly held belief of our Ego that we are righteous. This is what it really means to die to sin. It does not mean that we put sin to death in us, but that like Christ we allow sin to put us to death. Once sin has killed us–and Scripture is clear that we have died with Christ–we will find that sin no longer has power over us. We will find that sin only had power over us when we were living in what we thought was righteousness. Once we die, and see our sin for what it is, it’s grip will loosen as if it were a parasite that has realized that its host has died. And when it has released us and we have repented and let it go, we will find that there is something left in its place. A spark of life, a glimmer of love, and that love will grow and grow within us until it becomes our new nature. Then and only then have we become righteous, but we should not forget that death to sin and resurrection into Christ’s life are ongoing processes. If we lose sight of our sin and once again think that we have become fully righteous, we will halt all progress.

But how, one might ask, does one do this? How does one maintain the balance between sorrow and joy, between foolishness and wisdom, between sin and righteousness? Jung used the analogy of a great tree which spans the chasm between the heights and the depths. Like that tree, we must learn to grow toward the light of heaven while keeping our roots firmly planted in the darkness of hell. If we do not stay grounded by the lower realities of our nature, out of the very real fear that they will keep us from the heights, we will not be able to grow tall and straight. If we cut ourselves off completely from our sin, we will eventually fall and be entirely consumed by the void. To deny evil and darkness its existence and power will only result in the loss of the good and beautiful which we so desperately seek. So we grow toward the light, we grow together in fellowship, and we grow in love. We do not deny the darkness, but we long for the day when it will be swallowed up by the victory of that love and the one who has bestowed it upon us.