Sunny Side Up April 26, 2006 �2006, Kathleen Gibson Making friends with the dark There are some things you can only see if you're friends with the dark. Most of my life, I wasn't. Growing up, I hated our basement, the nighttime, black clothes, anything lightless. Somewhere along life's way I've learned that darkness can't hurt me. That the worst kind of darkness is the kind we carry within, not the stuff that blackens our windows and shuts the viewfinder on our sky. I still enjoy little beams in the dark. Flashlights. Small lamps. Anything to illuminate my way and brighten my corner. On cloudy days, I burn candles. The small lick of light challenges the gloom, lifts my spirits. But I've made peace with basements and closets. I wear black sometimes, and I enjoy early evening walks. During those walks, I'm entranced by multiple small lanterns. Along garden paths, outlining patio decks, they spill back the sun's rays they've spent the day collecting. Unknowingly their owners light the way for evening walkers like me, and I'm grateful. The other night the Preacher and I dropped a friend off at her temporary dwelling. Light from the main part of the house spilled onto the large windowed sun porch and beckoned one further. "I've never noticed this house," I said, "but we've passed it a thousand times! It's charming." "Actually, it's quite run down," said Puddleglum - oops, the Preacher. "You'll have to look at it in daylight." I did, the next afternoon. In the sun's glare the charm had evaporated. Peeling paint and disintegrating boards gave the place a neglected air. The sun porch extended no invitation. Indisputably, the brightness of light reveals truth. But there's another kind of seeing altogether, I'm learning. Darkness, if you look past the boogeyman, carries a loveliness of its own; true things seen there and nowhere else. Stars, northern lights, fireflies, little lanterns. When nighttime had cloaked the glaring flaws of that house, I noticed its best points. Plants silhouetted in its sun porch windows. Cozy overstuffed chairs in corners. Intriguing architectural details. An exquisite pattern in the lace curtain. I knew a woman often sharply criticized by others. Not until chronic illness shut off the glare of light around her could her critics see what had, for various reasons, been invisible before. Into the darkness of her pain, she began pouring out light she'd collected during the good years. Now, almost all her waking hours are spent cheering and praying for others. In the dark, she has become truly lovely. It takes practice to find beauty in life's dark times; and a willingness to look for it. It takes focusing more on the positive things the darkness reveals than the uncertainties it hides. It takes letting go of fear, and remembering that nothing, no matter how dark, can extinguish God's light in one's heart. And it takes something we can all begin today: collecting enough of that light in the good times to illuminate the path in the bad - for ourselves and others. Respond Home |
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