"Full Solar Spirituality" or...

Moonlight Spirituality

“When I go out on my porch at night, the moon never looks the same way twice. Some nights it is as round and bright as a headlight; other nights it is thinner than the sickle hanging in my garage. Some nights it is high in the sky, and other nights low over the mountains. Some nights it is altogether gone, leaving a vast web of stars that are brighter in its absence. All in all, the moon is a truer mirror for my soul than the sun that looks the same way every day.”

Barbara Brown Taylor (Learning to Walk in the Dark)

Barbara Brown Taylor writes about “full solar spirituality,” which focuses on the light of God at all times. Its adherents claim to never doubt, never waiver in their sense of God's goodness, to always have a positive attitude and a firm conviction in the white light of God's love. There is an underlying belief that if this unswerving confidence in the all powerful brightness is maintained, nothing bad will happen. If something bad does happen, then it must be God's will, and should not be questioned. I'll be honest with you, there are days when I envy this view of the world. I just can't pull it off.

Like Taylor, I am a “moon person.” For me, faith in the everlasting lightness of God waxes and wanes. Like the harvest moon, sometimes it is huge and colorful, lighting up the night like a giant spotlight. Other times, it is a sliver so thin you could cut yourself on it. Sometimes, it's simply non-existent. I question and probe the darkness in me and in our world, and honestly wonder, “Where is God in all this?” Why would a God of Light allow this atrocity to continue? Why are these innocent children suffering?

For me, finding God in the darkness is essential—both in my inner darkness, and in our collective outer darkness. What happens when the light is turned off in our lives? When we lose a job, or lose a marriage, or, God forbid, lose a child? What can we do with that if not hold our crushed spirit up as a sacrament as worthy as any “full solar” offering? God is present in the dark as well as the light—God is the dark as well as the light. “Bidden or not, God is always present.” (C. G. Jung)

                                                     In the Spirit,

                                                            Jane