Endarkment

We are taught from the time we are little that "darkness" is evil and "light" is good. It is the daily reminder that these two are opposed and opposite each other. Our society uses this in the public conversation through our movies, Darth Vader is dressed in black, Luke is in white. In the old westerns the bad guys wore black hats and the good guys white hats. Movies and television that deal with evil or trauma are referred to as "dark". We even have a genre known as "dark comedies". Pirates of old were "black-hearted" and even named Blackbeard. Do you remember at dusk your mother calling you for the night, from the creeping darkness to the light in the house. She was protecting us from the evil of the night. Even in our spiritual walk we view darkness as evil, several scriptures use the night or darkness as a metaphor for evil, as contrast to the light. It is inescapable, darkness is evil. Or so we have been told.

These thoughts have been rambling around in my head for a while, so forgive me if this comes out a little random. What has me stumped is the inevitability of the darkness for each of us. There is simply no escaping the "darkness". It could be circumstances beyond our control that has dimmed the light. There might have been poor decisions or poor responses that brought on the darkness. It might be the disillusionment of life that happens to us all.  I wrote about this in a blog post "Living Plan B" July 21, 2009, but really I have sprinkled this idea all through my blog and shared it publicly. But the struggle to understand still needles me.

Perhaps the dissonance I feel can be found in our society's preoccupation with happiness and security versus the reality that happiness is elusive and security is a myth. This societal bent has placed a patina over our entire existence and left us dissatisfied. And the articulation of this dissatisfaction is frowned on. Our home and family should all be healthy and happy. Our church life should be "solar" as one writer put it, full of joy and peace and good will. Our workplace should be fulfilling and successful. So when there is something missing from the above, when I am not performing at the level that it seems everyone else is, then the darkness slides in and the great cover-up begins. Which only bangs open the door for the darkness to rush in with even more force. We run from this darkness because it reflects, at some deep level, our own failures to craft the life we envisioned from the beginning.

But there are a couple of things that make me pause and reflect on the "darkness". In the most elemental way, the Creator built our entire universe with each "day" half light and half dark. Could we stand to live in the light all the time? No. Would all darkness be the best? Also no. Each serves its own purpose. The light is for purpose and action. We keep moving and accomplishing in the light. But the dark is for rest and more importantly reflection. It is in the dark quiet moments that we can come face to face with the reality of our lives. It is in those moments when the Creator whispers his message.

Barbara Brown Taylor says, "While this darkness was only a poor cousin of araphel, it alerted me to a question that would preoccupy me for months to come: when we run from darkness, how much do we know about what we are running from? If we turn away from darkness on principle, doing everything we can to avoid because there is simply no telling what it contains, isn't there a chance that what we are running from is God?"

The other thing that gives me pause is on closer investigation of the old book, there are some comments and references that indicate that darkness or the emotions that are ascribed to it are not all bad. In fact a few of them have a pretty elevated place:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit.."
"Blessed are those who mourn.."
"Blessed are the meek.."

Even the man who manifested God was known as "a man of tears" Darkness was not a stranger to him, but was a moment to hear the whispers of illumination.

So while I struggle with the societal disdain of darkness and my own residency in that darkness, I have come to value the lessons learned during those moments. The other primary lesson for me was to give myself a break in the midst of those dark nights, to be unapologetic that discernment is not easy and is not cheap and does not come while in the midst of the sunshine, but in the dark and aloneness of the night.

Godspeed to those who have known more than their share of the dark, we should listen to you because the Creator has granted you a wisdom beyond the norm.
Don