So the Lord's presence was only a temporary respite, and I'm back in darkness. In this darkness, it seems that all my previous beliefs about his activity in my life are foolishness, and that there is no hope that anything positive and good, much less supernatural and blessed, is ever going to happen in my life.

The mystical doctors talk frequently about "temptations against faith and hope." What I am experiencing is a constant third-degree pressure, like The Green Lady on Perelandra, to give in, give up. 

The thought is not to give up on Christ or Christianity altogether (though I have no doubt that would come later, if I gave in at this stage), but to quit this ridiculous idea that I'm hearing and being led by God directly, or especially that he has promised me any particular blessing here in this life. I've been thinking, over and over, that it's time to just give up on all that silliness, go to mass and confession a couple of times a year, try to live the most moral life that I can, hope for salvation when I die, and otherwise just do what I want.

"How long have you waited? How often have you believed that you were 'almost there'? And what have you got to show for it? What has he ever done for you? Where are his blessings? Where is all the good he's promised you? He has failed you." And then it shifts...maybe it's God himself who is telling you this. Maybe he's brought you to this pass to teach you to eschew all that foolishness, and just use your own God-given sense in life. And then it will shift again to, "Well maybe he did move in your life--maybe he did act. But you blew it. He sent you a woman who adored you and the opportunity for a whole new life, and you just lost everything through your own fault and went back to your old one. You forfeited his blessing and now you've lost it, and are never going to get another. He's angry at you, and leaving you to your own devices." And then it circles around back to the first one. "It's because you dithered about with all that nonsense about guidance and leading, instead of just doing the thing that was obvious in front of you." 

That last one is the one I believe most. But it has to be a lie. How could one be punished for trying too hard to find God's will and obey it? I can see for obstinately refusing God's will, or even for failing to seek it. But for just trying and falling short? 

Obviously it's all a lie and a temptation. But it's hard to believe that when you're in it. Or that it's ever going to end. It's like the darkness in Shelob's cave, or like the Green Witch's spell in Underland--it doesn't just take the light from one's eyes, it steals all memory of light, makes one believe that light was a false imagination, that there has never been any such thing as light.