In two days many of us are going to celebrate Christmas; a time of new or re-birth, a time of celebration and rejoicing. So, why am I writing about ‘Darkness’ today? Well, gentle reader, for many the holidays – and especially this holiday – ‘Darkness not Light’ covers their soul. The reasons for this are legion. Job describes this well: the land of darkness, and shadow dark as death, where dimness and disorder hold sway, and light itself is like dead of night.
Anyone who has experienced being in this ‘Land of Darkness’ knows intimately of what Job describes. I know this land all too well. I first experienced entering in and residing in this land when I was five years old. Then I had no words for it – just the heart searing experience.
‘Darkness’ as I am thinking about it comes to us in many forms – ‘Darkness’ is not an easy visitor to have around. The life experiences we have are diverse and unique to each of us – just as each of us is unique, so is our own personal ‘Land of Darkness.’
Webster can be of help in describing ‘Darkness.’ Webster notes that ‘Darkness’ includes: closed, hidden, not easily understood, obscure, gloomy, hopeless, entirely or partly without light. We who have resided in ‘The Land of Darkness’ know that these words don’t even begin to touch the human experience. The human experience also includes: lonely, shattered, dead, anxious, forlorn, bereft, despairing, discouraged, defeated, empty, bleak, damaged, fear-full, stumbling and aimless.
‘The Land of Darkness’ includes, but is not limited to, the following:
- An experience in which my energy and life-focus is almost completely funneled into physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual pain;
- An experience of being deeply buried in a well of sorrows, grief and loss;
- A discouraging and dis-heartening and depleted inner journey wherein nothing seems worthwhile;
- A wilderness where God does not reside – God’s presence cannot be discerned nor experienced; it seems that even God’s ‘Spirit’ does not move about in this land;
- A battleground where I fight with indecision for powerful unknowns and fears and anxieties are trying to engulf me and beat me down and I am frozen by my own indecision;
- An inner garden of helplessness has been nurtured and sustained – and the awareness that I am both the garden and the gardener drives me to the edge of the pit of despair;
- A growing belief that ‘ALL’ is lost – that if I live I will always be wandering in ‘The Land of Darkness.’
I am blessed for I have learned that ‘The Land of Darkness’ is not an ‘unnatural land.’ Because I am a human being I will, for many reasons, enter into this ‘Land.’ My challenge as a human being is to learn to develop the capacities I need in order to survive in this land. I have also learned that I can – and do at times – choose to enter ‘The Land of Darkness.’ For example, I choose to enter this land when I compassionately and empathetically walk with another who is in deep pain or when I choose to sit with another who is already residing in this land.
Darkness can be cleansing and transformative – if I am willing to be open to its cleansing and transformative energy. Thomas Moore (the author not the saint) captures this when he writes:
The Greeks tell the story of the Minotaur, the bull-headed flesh eating man who lived in the center of the labyrinth. He was a threatening beast, and yet his name was Asterion-Star… It is a beast, this thing that stirs in the core of her being, but it is also the star of her innermost nature.
The poet Caryll Houselander provides us with words of hope when she writes:
God will enter into your night,
as the ray of the sun enters
into the dark, hard earth,
driving right down
to the roots of the tree,
and there, unseen, unknown,
unfelt in the darkness,
filling the tree with life,
a sap of fire
will suddenly break out,
high above that darkness,
into living leaf and flame.
Searcher-Seeker 
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