Incubation
“While
the dark night of the soul is usually understood to descend on one
person at a time, there are clearly times when whole communities of
people lose sight of the sun in ways that unnerve them.”
Barbara
Brown Taylor (Time Magazine, April 2014)
Time
Magazine named Barbara Brown Taylor among the 100 most influential
leaders of our time. In her latest book, Learning to Walk in the
Dark, she explores the dark night of the soul as both an
individual journey, and a collective one. I like her take on darkness
as the place where all new life begins, whether a seed in the earth,
or a baby in the womb. We humans began our existence here on earth
living in caves. The Buddha meditated in caves, Jesus emerged from
the tomb, and Muhammad received the Koran in a cave. New life
incubates in darkness.
As
difficult as it is to look at current world happenings as “good,”
perhaps this is our time of darkness, a collective dark night. It's
easy to be afraid in the dark. Our tendency is to lock ourselves into
our safe place, both physically and spiritually. We wrap our most
fundamental doctrines around us and use them as shields and weapons.
Rather than give ground, we defend our stance against all who would
endeavor to change us.
Have
you ever taken a walk in the dark? In your neighborhood or in a wood?
Little by little, your eyes adjust. Even when you go into places
where there is no artificial light, there is still light enough to
see your way. And there's a whole world out there; birds and animals
you won't see in daylight, sounds you won't hear. The Milky Way
stretches out like a quilt across the sky, and we get a profound
sense of just how tiny we are in the great scheme of things. It's not
a bad thing to experience; it helps to diminish unreasonable fear and unreasonable ego.
The
night is just the night. Part of the normal cycle of the created
order, both necessary and purposeful. Perhaps new life is incubating. That is my prayer.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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