DAY AND NIGHT, light and shadow, both have a part in our lives, both darkness and light seem to have a value for us. In the dark, it's hard to see for walking without tripping and falling over things in the dark. In the full light of day, it's hard to sleep or cool off from the heat of the sun. We are creatures that hover in the penumbra, the edge of shadow, people of that dim borderland between darkness and light.
Last Wednesday night the clouds cleared away and our bright full moon was smudged with a rusty tinge, a shadow hiding its light, not as clouds obscure it from our view, but as a shadow cast upon its face. The effect grew until the whole disc was strangely dim: a lunar eclipse. An hour later, the brilliant white was back and the moon gave forth its light.
Darkness and light—the everyday cycle of our 24-hour existence. Most of us work in the day, sleep at night, enjoying the in-between times as those of rest, reflection, and even love. But do we ever consider what these are?
The earth spins rather swiftly, and only its gravity keeps our bodies from being flung out into space. At one horizon, the night sky is almost imperceptibly mixed with a faint grey. Light slowly grows until one place glows red and orange, and finally the rays of the sun cut through the early morning sky. Day has broken. We trace the arc of our star's path angled across the dome of sky until shadows are long again, the pink and purple clouds herald nightfall, and the last rays are gone. One by one, tiny points of starlight appear. Day is done.
Mankind once believed that we stood still while this procession revolved around our world, just for us. Wrong , but an understandable observation, this idea was dispelled by clever measurements. One might also have stood at the North Pole and in summer never seen the sun go down, and in winter, only see the night. I've been within 240 miles of there, and the winter solstice gave me 15 minutes of day, and the rest an ice-locked night. We live on a ball that is half light, half dark, all the time, spinning.
But what is darkness? What is light? In the physical universe, light is both matter and energy, its unit a photon, and it goes faster than any other travelling object. When it hits something, it bounces off and when it strikes our eye, we see the form of that object it has illuminated. Light is the presence of billions of these photons, while darkness is their absence. Our universe once was completely, eternally dark. Nothing in it at all: a deep, dead dark.
But then God said, “Let there be light.” What a change! What a moment! Of course it was the first thing created. Everything else from that time has been made out of it. We are only slow moving light.
Darkness, while comforting for rest and recovery from the labors of the day, is now a rather artificial state in this creation of His. Our world has to turn away from its ever-blazing sun and hide one face from its light, 93 million miles away. A planet that only holds one face toward the sun, like Mercury, is cooked to a vapor on that side, and the shadow side absolute zero degrees. Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, got 80 below for me the last time I was there, with the wind-chill factored in. That's nothing . The eternal absence of light is absolute death: nothing lives or moves.
A Buddhist monk takes his place at a table, painstakingly arranging colored sands in a carefully planned mandala, about two blocks from here. At the end of a month his delicate picture will be finished, and he will have accomplished something. So, with distain he will pour that entire picture off its board and destroy it. His religion sees every human endeavor to be futile, impermanent, fleeting. His symbol a circle divided in two, black and white shapes each devouring the other forever. Yin yang, the wheel . Everything in balance, everything as nothing but a mirage. One only arrives at truth when one knows nothing, seeks nothing, is nothing. Then he dumps his sand painting on the ground. Enlightenment…
Well…
It's almost true, but what it lacks is almost everything. Darkness is not something , that it might divide the wheel in two, devouring light as itself is devoured. That's like believing the sun revolves around our earth. It's an observation, but made in ignorance. Darkness is not something, it is a lack, the absence of light. Darkness may be all, in a hypothetical universe without creation, without a Creator. The dark might be forever, and yet no one would be there to observe it, so what of it? Once light is, then light chases the darkness into shadows, pale temporary pools hiding from the eternal light. But even in these shadows, the light of stars and moon blaze on, telling the story, showing the truth. There is truth and it's positive. It stands forever, and once spoken, does not end. It is never eaten by lies.
I was once enamored by Eastern philosophies, as we all were then. The little truth of Eastern mystics is the dichotomy, things opposite, things in balance: up and down, in and out, life and death, male and female. But as you see, the higher up and more complex these things are, the more they are not opposites. Male is not opposite of female, but complimentary. Light is not the opposite of darkness, it is a presence instead of absence. Life and death are not opposed: life is eternal, death is only a passage from life to life. Once I saw past this, I realized the illusion was in the mystics, not in our world.
We were all once darkness, like the universe that very moment before God spoke. Without light, we could only stumble around in the shadows. What we believed, what motivated us, how we evaluated ourselves and others was uninformed, foolish, ignorant, blind. God knew that. St. Paul wrote to Ephesus: “ For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light… proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove (or expose) them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light… Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” Ephesians 5:8f
Our former sinfulness is forgiven, and our Lord has made a way into His light. But a sinful gravity pulls against us, from time to time, and part of us responds. That part seeks darkness, because light exposes it for what it is. It seeks the darkness of our private thoughts, of nighttime, of seclusion. Out of sight, sin thinks it gets away with something. But that is its foolishness. God sees everything. The night is to Him clear as day. And we know, too. And someone else.
Once riding with a police officer at about midnight, she gestured at the few cars on Highway 32 before us and said, “I figure that, at this hour, everybody who is out here must be doing something wrong.” She went on to prove her point. That someone else who sees in the darkness is our old enemy. Jesus came to destroy his works, and destroy them He did. But the tempter remains. He became the prince of this world when our first parents succumbed to his insinuations about our God. Jesus said, “N ow is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself… Yet a little while is the light among you. Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtake you not: and he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light, believe on the light, that ye may become sons of light.” John 12:31-36
The prince of darkness may only be prince if someone follows him. He is not prince by divine right, but only when people were made rulers of this planet, under God. When we supplanted God's headship with Satan's, we made Satan our prince. Jesus upset all that, threw down his false throne, and ended the tyranny of death, sin, and damnation from all who would stop following the deceiver. Make no mistake: most of the world still follows him. For the most part, they don't believe in him, don't think of a personal evil, and even of sin or evil, per se. The truly evil, always redefine what is right and what is wrong. They are always right. Every evil despot thinks like that.
The light breaks on our world, and Jesus Christ is the Sun in our heavens. The darkness that reigned over all the earth for millennia has been dispelled by the brilliant rays of an emerging Star. A New Star heralded His birth, did it not? St. John called Him light: “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not… That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world... and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:4-14
God understands and He means for us to grow. Life is growth, not returning to un-being, not destruction, not futility. Life is meant to build toward something, its final stage to be a continuing perfection, still growing, still becoming more. Becoming less, seeking oblivion, resigning ourselves to endless turns on the wheel, fatalistically returning to the darkness is the devil's only hope. He would love to unbecome , to cease his existence, for all that he has to look forward to is unspeakable horror. But things do not unbecome. They go on. They go on to greater glory, which is God's will, or to burn without end like the burning bush, giving God glory as well, for He is just, and has offered mercy and light. But they would have darkness and nothing else.
“And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience; among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” Eph 2:1-3 We were all once darkness, but let us, now that we have the light, be children of that light.
PFH+