It's Always Darkest

Darkness and light

day and night

ebony black

brilliant white

'tween blindness and sight

a thread drawn tight

dawn is the land

from which we take flight

Thank you to fellow sojourner Joy LeBlanc for inspiring my thoughts for today's writing. 

There is darkness within; darkness that is sometimes frightening and overwhelming. It almost seems foreign to us, except that it is so terribly familiar. At times we fear it, resent it, run from it. Then there are moments when we submit to it, dive into it, relish it, only to walk into the light and feel shame for the darkness which seems so far away and untrue.

There is light within; light that is sometimes frightening and overwhelming. It almost seems foreign to us, except that it is so terribly familiar. At times we long for it, hope for it, yearn for it. Then there are moments when we submit to it, dive into it, relish it, only to walk into the night and feel a foreigner in a foreign land. 

We are, we humans, creatures of dark and light, day and night. But perhaps - perhaps we are truly creatures of the dawn - of almost day and almost night.

Dawn - a time of promise, the herald of day, the complete unfolding of night from its evening birthing.

Is this not the path of our being - dawn follows the darkness which is birthed from the dusk which overtook the brilliance of day, which is the love child of the dawn sky? Cycles and circles and beginnings and endings.

There is darkness within - and I would be incomplete without it in this very human journey. Without this darkness I would not learn compassion; I would not know the sweet ringing of hope's bell tolling when night seems endless. Without this darkness I would be a pond where the love of my heart wants to be an ocean. Without this darkness I would be height and width but lacking depth; two dimensions in a three-dimensional universe.

To speak of the Light is to know its twin, and to embrace one is to dance with the other. I for one am a creature of the dawn, full of promise, an explorer between two worlds.

"darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters...

and God said, 'let there be light...'"

(Genesis 1)

and there was dawn of the first day of creation.

Darkness and light

One day there will be only light,

and I will have learned of its glory from the shadows of night's long embrace,

and I will forever breathe in gratitude that the journey of my soul in this flesh

walked the dawn and dusk

in our Creator's wake.

If you have known the darkness you have my compassion.

Accept the darkness; dance in the light

Pax,

Pastor Bill

[First published November 28, 2012.]