When I close my eyes in prayer and allow myself the possibility of looking within, to consider the wonder of God’s magnificent all-encompassing love, the darkness I experience is beautiful and inviting. It is a space of deep healing.
In summer months, I volunteer for a program that I loved deeply as a teen and still love today for the power of transformation it serves as a catalyst of in people who dare to say yes to a week on top of a mountain in northern NH. My part is to lead an offsite week-long trip of canoeing and camping on Lake Umbagog (no running water, no bathrooms, no Coleman stove, and fully embracing leave-no-trace practices). Our last night together (back on the mountain) is always spent engaging in a camp tradition off the ages—sleeping on a ledge with no shelter, no fire and a night hike to our destination (no lights). Our conversation focuses on the power of the brain and the wonder of the human eye as the two work together to allow us to see in the dark. We talk of how, even in our sleep, our brains are aware of the space we sleep on and keep us from harm (yes, we have adults awake at all hours to ensure physical safety). We learn to embrace, through this experience, the beauty of darkness as without it, we cannot know light.
Common interpretation of scripture focusing on God’s light has led to the belief that light is the source of goodness and hope. This belief implies darkness is not wanted or needed, it is something to banish or get rid of, as well, an extreme belief that God is not even present in the dark. We inherit too, Colonial interpretations of scripture that equated light and dark with the color of skin, leading to a similar dichotomy of thinking that those with light skin are chosen and those with dark skin are full of sin and deserving punishment. Both established negative views of human realities that cannot be changed and are deserving of love. God’s love is radical, it is a power beyond our understanding. No one and nothing is separate from it. God created all, looked upon it, and called it good. Human reality and creation brings us our darkest moments. These moments are not given us by God, but are created by series of decision making by ourselves and others, impacting the trajectory of our lives. God’s plan is to continue to respond with love and continued opportunity to fully align ourselves with God’s love. God is present in what sustains us through the hardness. God is responding as our minds shift towards healing. God is acting when others reach in to pull us out of ourselves and help us find clarity of mind. God is that force that stops us from going to the extremes of harm. God is the deep learning of ourselves that emerges when we lean into the darkness and ultimately saves us again and again.
Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, helps us reimagine our understanding of darkness, primarily how Christianity heavily relies on the binary construct of light as good and darkness as bad. Taylor proposes the pair of light and dark exist together in balance, not opposition. She asks, “What can light possibly mean without dark?” Taylor also challenges us to seek a new understanding of those experiences that we call our “darkest” as inherent to human experience and necessary for our survival.
Welcome to our Advent journey In Darkness and in Light…