"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..." (Genesis 1:1-2a)
Darkness.
Deep darkness, everywhere.
Void of life and hope and love.
Empty and cold.
Deep calls to deep in this darkness. There is a sorrow here that cannot be spoken. Only experienced. It is a lament that rises from the pit of the stomach and emerges in wretched sobs. So has been my experience of the dark.
"Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good..." (Genesis 1:3-4a)
I imagine that it was like the slow break of dawn. An easy rising, a gentle caress on the landscape. Emerging ever so slowly and growing steadily brighter and warmer.
Hope comes in this morning. It is here that you can grow conscious of your own heartbeat and feel the goodness of it in your chest.
I've had experience with the light. It is so different from the dark. It is warm and bright and you can see everything clearly. There is love and peace and comfort there. I have experienced the fullness of bright hope and joy in this dawn of light. And I have found the light good.
"The world's light shines, shine as it will,
The world will love its darkness still.
I doubt though when the world's in hell,
It will not love its darkness half so well."
Richard Crashaw, "But Men Loved Darkness Rather Than Light"
I have experienced the goodness of light. I have experienced the life-giving warmth of it. I have felt and understood the dawning of hope. I have allowed it to permeate my being.
And yet, so often, despite it all, I choose darkness.
Depression is a blanket that I wrap around myself, and I gently coax my mind down well-worn pathways of negative thoughts. I move from one to another, like a skipping stone on the surface of still water. I've seen light and I choose to shut my eyes to it. I, instead, allow my thoughts to run away down paths filled with horror.
It always culminates in roughly the same place. And I have no better way of describing it than to tell you it is dark.
Why? Why do I choose the darkness when I so often have seen light? Why would I emerge from the cave of my deepest depression, look at the rising sun, and turn my back on it to walk once more into the cave? What is so comforting about the Pit that it seems to beckon to me?
I'm not sure. I don't understand why I do the things I do and think the things I think. I don't understand my mind much less the nebulus of emotion within me. So what is there to say? What is there to do? If I so love the darkness, should I just give in to it? Do I surrender to the pull and allow myself to slip under the weight of it? Do I walk blindly to the back of the cave and sink lower and lower until there is no further to go?
No.
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (John 1:5)
I'm not sure about a lot of things, including how this all works. But I have a sense that there is a great paradox to all this. There is a tension held. Even at creation, darkness was not destroyed. Only given its ordered bounds.
Perhaps, for now, that is where I must live. Holding both light and darkness in my sights. Perhaps instead of choosing either the cave or the broad, open sky, I must stand instead at the mouth of the cave. Perhaps I must stand with the cool darkness pressing on me from behind, yet always face the growing warmth of Christ's love.
Darkness is present. It is real. But it has not, and will not, overcome the light.
Perhaps this is where we all must stand. Holding this tension. Learning and adapting and growing. Allowing our eyes to adjust ever slowly to the light of Christ. All the while knowing that the darkness, though real, is not forever.
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