Llight Shines, Darkness Hides

The way my childhood worked, the farm was pretty, the sunshine warm and hot. Ugliness hid in the darkness. The darkness made anything light seem amazing and wonderful--a trip to town, especially one to spend time with the Wood teacher cousins without my parents, a skipping trip across the far field to Price's Market for that box--always wrapped in brown paper, a drink from the pump over the well or from the spring at Dad's farm (other place), white fluffy clouds floating across the blue, blue sky that allowed me to imagine that I would go with them to exotic lands.

There were many little lights along with the darkness on our farm. What I want to write about isn't that, however. It's a way of looking at the light without ignoring the darkness--which is what I had to do growing up.

When I look at the darker areas of these photographs, some areas simply are without the sun and other parts are completely dark. In my spiritual journey of self-knowledge, I've learned that some of what was held in the darkness was there because at that time, I couldn't have acknowledged it. Other experiences and character flaws I have kept in that darkness either because I didn't want to look at them or because I wasn't strong enough to take in what was there. I've recently become aware that underneath my appreciation of the beauty of nature, of friends and of the depth of God's love is a deep expectation of the other shoe falling.

Yes, it does come from childhood, from the mornings when I awakened and listened to hear how Mother's day was beginning, knowing that even if she was whistling with the birds, at any minute her mood could darken, and I could be considered the cause.

I believed that I had outgrown that apprehension--or that my centering prayer practice had healed it. Now that I am fully aware of this presence, it robs my days of deep peace and bring anxiety that must have been there all along to the surface. What I have learned is that it is by awareness of those feelings that have been held in the darkness, by bringing them into the light, that healing occurs.

There are always lessons in those emotions too. In this case, more compassion for those who live with the awareness of constant anxiety. Others may follow. I will hold this childhood anxiety with gentleness and care and ask the Holy Spirit to dispel its dark presence.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." John 1:5 NRSV