THE DARKNESS
We are called by the Light of eternity to be the light of the world. We tend to view darkness as evil, since evil much prefers darkness to light. Yet darkness is as light to God, who sees equally in both temporal domains. As the Psalmist said, in utter awe of the omnipresent, all-knowing God: If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you” (Psalm 139:11-12). It was God who formed light and darkness (Isaiah 45:7).
As a child, I feared the darkness, or at least what might be hidden in the darkness. I comforted myself with Psalm 23:4 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (KJV). While in the Marine Corps as a young man, I continued to comfort myself with these assuring words. And in the times I came across and then against evil, I always sought to shine the light of God, of truth and justice, to chase away the evil one, who dwells in darkness.
After a period of nearly five years of spiritual intimacy with God, the door to communion was abruptly closed, without explanation. The voiceless echo of God said simply: “It will not always be like this.” Then I entered what St. John of the Cross, a sixteenth-century Christian mystic called “the dark night of the soul.” It happened right at the time I entered seminary and the ministry. I felt rejected and constantly prayed for a return to the “salad days” of romantic love with the Beloved. I felt like a rejected lover. I had – and have – no power over God; God is ever in charge, and sets the agenda. I begged God to be permitted to come in from the cold, to reengage in our intimacy. I feared that I may have done something wrong, or gotten too use to our mutuality. I asked for forgiveness constantly. But nothing availed me.
Thirty-one years later, during a ten-day intensive Centering Prayer retreat, the dark night broke with the dawning of a heart-to-Heart union with Jesus Christ. A few years later, during my morning prayer, Christ said something to me that changed my understanding of what I had lived through. The words came without preparation or fanfare: “I was closer to you in the darkness, than you thought I was in the light.” I sensed the truth of these words immediately. Responding to Christ’s words, I wrote:
In the darkness,
I have no other sense than You;
You bring Your sense, like a scent,
With You, as calling card and gift.
In the darkness,
No sights or sounds to distract
My heart’s desire for You
Ascending like an arrow knowing
The whereabouts of its intended target;
Being pierced, my heart
Seeks to pierce Your Heart,
Building then a line of love
Between this and the Other Side,
Never to be severed, but
Ever to serve us as ours alone.
Forgive me, Beloved
If I long to wound You
With the love by which
You have wounded me,
As if our commonality
Might guarantee a common future.
Do not fear the darkness. God may be or abide in Absolute Light; yet the darkness and whatever dwells in the darkness are not hidden from God. When you pray, take with you the faith that God will be closer to you in the darkness than in the light. Trust and live the words of the Psalmist, The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1).
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