The Darkness of Light
by Greg Prout
By Greg Prout, November 21, 2013
As a young child, I was afraid of darkness. When put to bed and the lights turned out, I imagined menacing gorillas lurking nearby. I swear I saw their shadows skulking across my walls in the reflection of moonlight. Gorillas do not sing lullabies, and going to bed could be sheer terror. Many times I feigned thirst and bellowed for mom to retrieve me a glass of water just to get her to turn on the lights. Pesky gorillas, they would disappear quicker than light, and I knew they were waiting for the darkness again to scare the willies out of me. Being a child was not easy, and there were no bible texts about gorillas; I know because I checked.
“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5).i
The meaning is the Light shines unceasingly, and the darkness cannot overcome it. Good news. I wish I had understood this as a child. The promise is Light will dispel darkness, but sometimes I find a troubling paradox: Darkness in the Light.
There is a darker side to John’s “light into darkness” statement; darkness that torments me. God can be vague and distant, like a wilderness. “But my beloved had turned away and had gone! …I searched for him, but I did not find him. I called to him, but he did not answer me” (Song of Solomon 5:6). Like Tar Baby in Uncle Remus Folktales,ii God sits speechless as I pummel him with my supplications. Long ago I shed the skin of immature drive-thru faith, praising God for finding lost keys or a parking space at the mall. Instead, I progressed into the dark realities of faith in a world often broken and entirely mad. God perplexes me. Theodicy harasses me. His thoughts are not my thoughts; my ways are not His ways (Is. 55:8–9); my faith trampled by reality.
Temporality struggles to fathom eternity. Measured space struggles to fathom infinity. We talk of a relationship with God and how eager He is to have a relationship with us, but listen to Job, ‘O that a man might plead with God as a man with his neighbor! ‘(Job 16:21). The Light can be very dark indeed. “The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these” (Is. 45:7).
When I am in the wilderness, my prayers remind me of the ascending smoke rings of Lewis Carroll’s Caterpillar, dissolving into nothingness.iii I knock on Heavens’ Door,iv and the place is vacant. I am empty, and God is empty; and the darkness like a Kafka novel.
David complains the Lord sets him in ‘dark places…in the lowest pit,’ and plaintively asks why God has rejected Him and hides His face from him. See Psalms 88. Again, Job: “Where now is my hope? And who regards my hope? Will it go down with me to Sheol? Shall we together go down into the dust?” (17:15-16). A believer understands Hell when she experiences the non-responsive God. I now understand the complaint of the Deist: God wound us up and wandered off. I know the angst of the Existentialist: no Presence; no encouraging words whispering in my thoughts. There is abundant hope, but not always for me. It is often just dead as if God had vanished. “My soul cleaves to the dust” (Ps. 119:25).
There is no intervention, no mediator in the opaqueness of God. His concealment defines Him as Mystery while driving me nearly mad. I am free to explore possibilities, answers, theologies and God, and I do, endlessly, yet He remains detached. Biblical promises are not guarantees in this life. Scriptural promises can simulate odds in Las Vegas. They produce expectations; I throw the dice and expect more than ‘snake eyes.’ I cry out from my suffering, awaiting something. Faith confronts the void. My spiritual riddle is like ‘playing solitaire while the King of Hearts is well concealed,’v or another verse might be: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
With the darkness of Light, I feel like Habakkuk (3:17). Nothing works; prayers leap into the abyss; production fails; self-worth plummets and God’s footprints disappear in the retreating tide. Habakkuk knew this murky swamp and chose to rejoice, a form of hope. Swallowed by opaque obscurity, Job made his famous illogical claim: “Though He slays me, I will hope in Him”(Job 13:15). Job also chose hope. Ravaged by the sudden loss of family, a distraught wife, feeling deserted, falsely accused, yet he hopes while in blinding darkness (see Job 19).
Frustrated, we contest God; we ask hard questions: Would a Friend invite the Devil to harm His loving ally in a cruel game? Is this the “God of love”? Would Job have believed had he known he was the ball in a soccer game between God and Satan? Was Job a such a plaything? The conundrum of this story alone challenges my faith. Job trusted even though God resembled the mute stone idols He condemned, adding an ominous nuance to “Jesus, the Rock.”
What do we do when our prayers seem to fall lifeless to the ground, when God is judged absent, and life feels pointless? We either run, or frantically rearrange the chairs on our deck of faith as cognitive dissonance is not uncommonly the underbelly of faith. Sometimes, worst of all, we stop believing.
“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
The dynamics of belief in an invisible God drive the darkness of Light. Suffering darkness is unavoidable. Fortunately, spiritual nightfall does not describe the whole Christian life, but if you are a Christian, your lights will go out, sometimes briefly, sometimes at length, but always an inexorable attack on trusting God.
I have concluded three things. First, regardless of faith’s vicissitudes, I believe. Jesus, my example, trusted regardless of challenging evidence. Promises, assurances, and consolation deserted Him. The cross concealed God, and Jesus, feeling forsaken, submitted to the unknown, uncertain there would be tomorrow. He is Light shining into my darkness. Believing can seem absurd, strangling the life out of you; yet we are to trust like Jesus. We do not surrender our faith when evidence overruns our reality and chains us to the fusty dungeon of despair; we endure. We too will have a cross, and it will teach us that lesson.
Secondly, when your Christian experience is pitching black, praise and thanksgiving are essential. Daily, count your blessings. Gratitude is a light switch in the black hole of spiritual darkness.
Finally, The Incarnation means God “lives and moves and has His being” (Acts 17:28) in the society of humanity. He embeds Himself in the molecular structure of our lives, the foundation of who we are as human beings, having to work things out as we work things out. He limits Himself. God incarnates into our feeble thought patterns, our misconceptions, our wrong-headed notions about life and the hereafter. He is there in our careful plans, our quotidian efforts, our creations, and our character flaws. Like the song, He has become “one of us.”vi
When bad decisions occur and nasty consequences result, God is there plodding through our messy stuff like a crafty GPS redirecting our erroneous course. We laugh… He laughs; we weep… He weeps; we stumble… He stumbles, always sharing our humanity because that is the decision He made in the wards of eternity long before we went to hell (Eph. 1:1-5). He has incarnated into ordinary people living mundane lives. He is the ultimate Other, the “Stranger on the bus just trying to make his way home.”vii
My faith cannot be built on expected goodies, or miracles and promises, but only on His claim of who He is. Jesus is straight from the heart of the Father where He continues to adore me, in spite of the sewer I often make of my time here. When frustrated and depressed, when my fog envelopes God, that is just my broken self in a flawed world, my crumbled sinful existence living out the curse (Gen. 3:17). Ineluctable suffering just is, and like Job, I hope in hope. Perhaps I am beginning to understand the Incarnation on a deeper level and commencing to comprehend the Light after all; for the gorillas have gone.
i All biblical texts are from New American Standard Bible, 1972.
ii Uncle Remus Folktales, Joel Chandler Harris, 1881.
iii Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1865.
iv “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Bob Dylan, 1973.
v “Solitaire,” Neil Sedaka, 1972.
vi “One of Us,” written by Eric Brazilian (1994), and released by Joan Osborne, 1995.
vii Ibid.
After looking back on the times of darkness through which I have come, my typical realization is that I was seeking God in the places where He had not told me to look for Him. I was looking for Him in the traditions of the church instead of seeking to have Him reveal Himself to me directly. I had my mind set on Him doing certain things for me when He could see that I needed something else, but I was so fixed on that one thing I had blinded myself to seeing what He was offering. They I allowed my feelings of self-caused disappointment become frustration and even rage at Him where I accused Him of not being there, not listening and not answering my demands.
I disagree with your concluding paragraph where you stated "My faith cannot be built on expected goodies, or miracles and promises, but only on His claim of who He is." Look at the miracles Jesus performed. Read the stories and see if you can find any evidence that the recipients recognized Jesus or knew who was standing in front of them before He did something great for them. Jesus performed miracles so that people would want to know Him better and begin believing. Those miracles created faith. Miracles and the "expected goodies" that God showers on believers are both the foundation of faith and the daily doses of fertilizer that keep the vine of faith growing and producing fruit for the Kingdom of God. It is that vigorous, vibrant and current or remembered experience with God that gives me hope to see through the times when Satan is attacking me and trying to surround me with darkness. It is remembering the power I have seen come in answer to my prayers that gives me courage to command the darkness to depart and Satan to be bound so I can go on God's assignments.
As there are degrees of faith and experience with God, there are differing amounts of light. If I turn on a battery-powered penlight in a darkened room I have dispelled some of the darkness. But for how long? Until the battery is exhausted or I find a stronger source of light. If I flip the light switch on the wall I flood the room with greater brightness. But for how long? Until I turn the switch off or allow a greater source of light into the room. I could open the curtains and let light flood into the room from the noonday sun outside. Or, I could go outside and stand in the light where there is no darkness other than my shadow that I only see if I am not looking toward the light. How long will we be satisfied with our faith being a mere penlight in a darkened room when we could enjoy being surrounded by a far greater amount of light? Or, will we be satisfied with being like Job in the midst of his suffering and forgetting the end of the story where God blessed him more than at any time before in his life.
What a heady and bracing draught of truth. Thank you for walking us through the valley of the shadow of death. Michael Novak's Book "No One See's God" is a supporting text for this wonderful piece Greg has written. Thank you for the mature Christian's view of honest faith.
These truths about the Dark/Light battle also have application to our doctrine of Creation. Genesis 1 is a revelation of Light Shining Into Darkness in 6 Creation Days which begin in Darkness and End in Light. Only the 7th Day does not have a "darkness followed by light" pattern to it. Thank God that the aeon long battles of darkness with light, have a Sabbath of rest from this struggle at the end of it. Geology and fossils tells the same truth, Life struggles with Death, Light struggles with Darkness. And the Darkness can not overcome the Light.
The just (upright, right-eous, eyes that see the Christ Light) shall live by Faith; Faith that dispels the darkness'es of my soul; Faith that climbs the highest hill to see into the promised land; Faith that survives the depressions of life; Faith that climbs out of the darkest pit; Faith that finds the Light, Jesus, and reflects that Light of the universe (es).
Thank you Greg, like Job, your anecdotal object lesson, touches my soul, you had gorrillas, i had indians (to much Gerronimo and Sitting bull) seeking to count coup with my scalp, the lonely train whistles at night from the near tracks, brought the covers tighter over my head. (no disparage of indians, i am 1/16th Cherokee)
Thank you William, for your response.
Greg,
I used to be terrified of the dark too, but for me it was snakes or dingoes!
I also used to experience similar anquish of faith in the valley of shadows. As I write just now I can't find words to explain how deeply saddenning your blog is.
Can I ask you a few questions?
You say: "We either run, or frantically rearrange the chairs on our deck of faith as cognitive dissonance is not uncommonly the underbelly of faith. Sometimes, worst of all, we stop believing."
Why is it the worst of all to stop believing?
You, Earl, and I all know the terror of imagining things in the dark! But does Earl still pull the covers over? Do you still call Mum back for that last bit of light? Do I still imagine dingoes and snakes?
How liberating it was the moment we stopped imagining things in the dark!
I cannot begin to tell you how joyous, liberating, and peacefull it is to have stopped believing. The very thing you say is the worst! How many of the things one "must" keep believing are just as imaginary as your Gorillas, Earl's Indians, and my Dingoes? Yes, I am very evangelistic with this peace now because I believe no one should be left to struggle in the darkness of imaginary things.
The challenge is to know what is imaginary and what is not as we frantically rearrange the deck chairs!
That leads to my next point.
You have 3 conclusions, all of which focus on Jesus. Greg, what would you say to the possibility that the Jesus story was written by people/a person to describe a person of faith with the very intention of encouraging people who struggled with the anguish of a concealed God just as you have? In which case one would be left with little more than the blind leading the blind. Beautifull examples of people grasping around in their shared darkness.
As I read your conclusions, I cannot help but think you have narrowed it down to the head of a very thin pin. It is also the last pin upon which I tried to stand when I was sorting through what was imaginary and what would dissappear in the light of day (reason).
These are not meant to be criticisms. This is a beautifull, (but harsh) world. Life is a beautifull gift, far too short to spend fleeing Gorillas, hiding from Indians, or fearing dingoes. And, perhaps, far too short to waste our emotional energy struggling with a desperate search in the darkness for the invisible. If God is there, He will make himself known without such agony. Just live, love, and enjoy being human. Reach out to the stranger on the bus who is trying to make his way home. They too may be still out-growing their childhood nightmares:) It took me 40 years!
This is not to say there is no place for spirituality, the benefits of the social cohesion of Church communities (of which I am still a part), the softer sides of religious belief that can make one care for their neighbor, or for the prods into being better people that can be gleaned from such environments. What it is to say, is that real peace, joy and wellbeing are to be found when one stops believing the things that throw our minds into this intense dissonance in a desperate search for light that has no substance when we desperately grasp it.
Just to clarify: The childhood nightmares I took 40yrs to outgrow were not the dingoes! It was the religious ones!
cb25,
may i refer you to bob dylan (forgive the length):
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You might be a rock ’n’ roll addict prancing on the stage
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage
You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk
You may be the head of some big TV network
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame
You may be living in another country under another name
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may be a construction worker working on a home
You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome
You might own guns and you might even own tanks
You might be somebody’s landlord, you might even own banks
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side
You may be workin’ in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair
You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk
Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread
You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy
You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray
You may call me anything but no matter what you say
You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
good grief, that's a long song!
cb25, i respect your discovery of freedom from faith (imaginary things) and your continued involvement with a church community. you have chosen a different path, a different understanding, a different belief, and you sound like a person i would like to know. my belief in God allows me to celebrate your point of view, which i might add, was well written. but for various reasons, i have found Jesus, the historical Jesus, as somone i choose not to abandon regardless of life's harsh realities. please don't think i don't have a good time. i find the universe wearing a smile and not a frown, for life is beautiful overall, just not all the time on this violent and broken planet. my piece was written during a moment of time on my journey where i questioned everything, and found tenacious belief that which ultimately lifted me from my time in hell. the love displayed in Jesus' life is unquestionably a beacon in mine; i will not let Him go.
i understand cognitive dissonance, a faith that makes no sense, and the choice to walk away from it all, but because of my understanding of Jesus, i choose to stay. gorillas and dingoes are about childhood fears, trust in God in about living the smile in an adult world where sometimes the lights go out.
like the song, i will serve Somebody, as will you, even if it is yourself, or reason, or whatever, we will bow down to something or someone. cb25, i wish you persistent peace and love on your journey, and thank you for a great post! (sorry for all those lyrics, i just didn't know where to stop).
greg