Hello, friends.
In my post containing my Christmas Eve poem, I alluded to certain adventures that have made the start of 2018 far more eventful than any other year-beginning I’ve experienced. Then, my first post in the current blog series – “How I Became R. A. Nelson” – referenced Epiphany: light breaking into darkness, revelation into uncertainty…especially poignant meditations at the start of a new year.
Well, friends, the “adventure” continues. I can honestly say that I have never been more in need of light to break through. The uncertainty of the way forward has never been more weighty or intimidating, and I have never been more soul-hungry for revelation.
As a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about darkness.
And you know what? Such thinking has been a lot more encouraging than I ever thought it could be.
It started with reading Genesis 1:
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…”
In the beginning…darkness.
That means it came first.
And everything that came after it could not have happened without it.
Humans tend to be afraid of darkness. I, myself, sometimes have to fight off attacks of sheer terror when left alone in the dark. But, in the beginning, it wasn’t like that. Darkness was a blank space – a canvas created so that the masterpiece of creation could be displayed.
Just ask Tolkien; he put the same ideas into the mouth of one of his most inimitable characters, Tom Bombadil:
“ ‘Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn… He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless – before the Dark Lord came from Outside.”
Darkness is meant to be a starting point – absence created in order to be filled with presence.
As I walk through my current “void”, it is encouraging to remember that all voids are merely the space over which the Spirit of creation – of new Life, and Beauty, and fruitful Purpose – can breathe.
Take courage, friends.
And let there be Light.
Epiphany
Darkness first
The natural state
Mystery free from chilling fear
Sudden burst
A wide open gate
History’s fullness drawing near
Day breaks in
Now Night has a name
Hungry with life, the planets turn
Seasons spin
Their whirligig game
Sated with strife, man’s fires burn
Darkness now
Both hated and feared
Symbol of evil, doubt, and dread
Could somehow
Its name still be cleared
Vessel of peace, Day’s restful bed?
Is the Night
Forever our foe
Destined to pay for Nature’s crime?
Or will Light
New mercy bestow
Freeing its friend, redeeming Time?
Darkness then
Restored to its post
Womb of creation, Home of dreams
Soon, again
The True Sacred Ghost
Will breathe o’er the void that with Death now teems
Thus renewed
The primeval blank
Forever purged of Terror’s stain
Free, imbued
With glorious rank
Enters again the great refrain:
“I am space
Brought forth to be filled
Canvas untouched, a virgin loom
In my place
The Artist has willed
For a new vision to make room”
Friends restored
The brothers at peace
Absence for Presence comes awake
Their reward
Which never shall cease:
Yielding themselves for the other’s sake
Glorious!!!
Darkness whispers the promise that dawn is coming.
In moments of darkness, I like to listen to “endless night” from the lion king Broadway soundtrack. It has brought hope in dark times. “I know that the night must end and that the sun will rise, and I’ll hear your voice deep inside” 💓 courage dear heart – “its always darkest before the dawn” – flourence and the machine
Quoting Disney, Broadway, Aslan, and Florence in the same paragraph = we’re related.