Light in the Dark

In difficulty, the times of loss, illness, pain, we enter into the darkness.  We loose the ground upon which we were standing, supporting ourselves and others, and enter into the free fall of uncertainty.  There is overwhelm, dread, a lack of hope, and so much despair.  We enter what the spiritual teachers and mystics call "A dark night of the soul" when what we depended on for our belovedness, our belonging, our sense security has fallen away.  For believers, there may be little solace from spiritual practices, community, or God. And yet, all of our great spiritual wisdom points a finger to the holiness of this dark place as the very threshold through which the divine through the soul comes into its aliveness.  Leaning into the darkness, we can mysteriously find a deep source of comfort, presence, and love to help sustain us through our difficulty.  And this experiences helps us to know what is alive in us beyond the material things of life.  This connection to our aliveness brings a richness to experiences that could not be accessed in any other way. 

We live in an awesome world filled with an infinitude of variety, wildness, space, and life that we will never completely comprehend or take in.  Consider the billions of creatures that live in the sea, the infinity of space, the millions of years humans have lived on an earth that is billions of years old. The whole endeavor is in a constant state of flux and change.  The nature of the material world is change, coming, going, birth, destruction, reformation.  It is amazing and delightful and yet the material alone could never completely satisfy us.  Because, we are mortal.

Paradoxically, God's infinite presence comes to me unexpectedly through the materiality of life especially during the dark times of uncertainty and despair.  The river where I have swum for over 50 years becomes a baptismal chalice.  I catch the waves of golden light upon the bottom stones and am baptized in this new light.  Something is dying in my despair even as something new is coming to life.  I feel childlike again and in this moment time ceases to exist.   My father comes closer to me here, a place where he was relieved from his wounds and anxiety.  The river and my father inviting me to let go of despair, to feel in the play of water, light, and stone my childlike wonder.