Broken: In the Dark
Humankind has always been somewhat afraid of the dark. We are a diurnal species, so at night, in the dark, and while we sleep, we are at our most vulnerable. If we are not sleeping behind closed doors or tents, nocturnal predators may decide that we are a tasty midnight snack.
These days, we use electricity so that we don’t ever have to be in the dark if we don’t want to be. If and when we are in the dark, it is by choice. But are we still as vulnerable in the dark as where we used to be? Is it still something to fear? In the dark is where we rest. It's where our eyes get more of a break and other senses may be sharpened. Was that a child’s footsteps I heard, or the dog? Our circadian rhythm needs the daily cycle of light and darkness in order to be healthy.
Darkness is normal, whole unto itself. Yet related to this ingrained fear, what was once a healthy fear for the survival of the species has demonized darkness. Darkness has become associated with brokenness instead of growth, with hiding instead of restoration, with hurt instead of healing.
Last summer the church where my family and I are active hosted Sharei Green, author of “God’s Holy Darkness.”
I highly recommend the book, even if you don’t have young children in your life. To reclaim darkness as good and holy and beautiful, she identifies some of the times and places when God works in darkness. One of the Bible stories she highlights that I had paid scant attention to before is 1 Kings 8, when the temple is complete and the ark of the Lord’s covenant is brought in to the inner sanctuary. In verse 12, King Solomon says, “The Lord has said he would dwell in thick darkness.” In other words, God is diurnal and nocturnal. Making God diurnal only, like human beings, remakes God in our image. But God works in the dark and dwells in the dark, too.
The phrase “dark night of the soul” has come to mean an absence of experiencing God’s presence. Yet that was not quite how St. John of the Cross, with whom the phrase originated, understood it. For this 16th century Spanish Catholic priest and poet, it was during this dark night that his soul encountered God in a mystical union. What if a “dark night of the soul” means a holy encounter with God? What if, in the midst of the brokenness that cause our metaphorical dark nights, in that darkness we find our own healing and restoration? What if darkness isn’t a place to avoid, but is a place to meet the holy, living God? Why, then, would we still avoid it, unless we are trying to avoid God?
How have you encountered God in the darkness? Comment below to share your story.