Finding Light Within the Darkness

Rev. Amy Russell - 2008-12-21

The light at this time of the winter is so dim, so weak, it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning when it’s still dark. The lack of light can often pull some of us into a kind of down time. Some even suffer from seasonal affective disorder with the darker days. But I think we all feel the lessening of light in winter as a dark time. I often feel an urge during the cold winter days to hibernate. Just pull the covers over my head and stay in bed until spring. No wonder animals hibernate. It makes sense when we’re feeling vulnerable to the cold.
Almost all ancient people in the Northern Hemisphere celebrated a holiday in the middle of this dark winter to pray and hope for the return of the sun. The traditions that our Western culture celebrate around this time are taken from many ancient traditions celebrating the hope that light will return to our lives. Advent wreaths with their four candles, menorahs, and Yule logs are symbols of the miracle of finding light in the midst of darkness.
We all go through dark times in our lives sometimes caused by losses or fear of loss. Losing someone we love to death or estrangement, losing a job, losing our health, or somehow just getting lost in the difficulties of life. All these things can lead us into a time of darkness. It sometimes feels like we’re lost in the wilderness.
UU Minister Sarah York speaks about these times during our lives:
Wilderness is a part of every person’s soul-journey, and part of our journey together as human beings who seek to live in community. Time in the wilderness is always a time of struggle. It is also a time of transformation and renewal… In the stories and rituals of Eastern as well as Western religions, a journey into the wilderness represents a time when we both pursue and resist the Holy.
These archetypes of wandering in the wilderness, on a journey to we know not where are repeated time and again in religious stories. The Jews escaping slavery only to be lost wandering around in the desert for forty years is one of foundations of many of our religious journey stories.
Another story echoing this theme of dark times and soul struggles is the story of Naomi and Ruth from the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Testament. Naomi was a grieving widow who was in deep despair over the loss of her husband and both her sons. She was bitter about her losses. So bitter in fact, that when she arrived back in Judah, her homeland, she told her friends that she didn’t want to be called Naomi, which means pleasant or lovely, that she wanted to be called “Mara” which means bitter. Call me “Bitter,” she said. Because that expresses how she felt. Angry. Lonely. She said she was “full” when she went away. She had a husband and two wonderful sons when they left Judah to go to Moab seeking a better harvest. And while they lived in Moab, Naomi lost everything she had. She’s returning home, empty-handed, she says. “I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.” She told her friends that the Lord has “dealt harshly with her”. She blamed God for her situation. She felt wronged and was angry.
When we experience darkness in our lives, grief and loss, we often feel bitter and alone. We feel no one cares about us. Life has turned its back on us. Whatever we trusted has let us down. And often we feel angry about our despair. Why did this happen to us? What did we do to deserve this? And sometimes we also feel guilty. It’s our fault, we think. Somehow we brought this on ourselves, we feel.
The despair we feel during these times is not something that someone can alleviate for us. It’s not something that can be soothed with platitudes. The last thing we want to hear at a time like this is that it’s going to be all right. All right? You are feeling the darkness of pain, of the depth of despair? What’s all right about that?
While we are in this state, we are focused inward. We can only feel the pain within, often becoming blind to what is around us.
Burton Cooper, a process theologian, tells of the days following the death of his little girl, Jennifer, who died at age five of a bacterial infection. He was a student in seminary and he felt very alone and anguished by not having a theological answer that would help him through his suffering. He thought that God had deserted him. He suffered for months in this state of aloneness. Finally, one day he noticed that a friend was there with him frequently, sitting with him, not forcing any answers on him, just being there. He said to the friend that he wished that someone at the seminary could help him deal theologically with this tragedy. His friend said that the people at the seminary were waiting for him to help them understand it. He meant that theology often doesn’t have answers for a particular individual’s suffering.
Burton Cooper began to realize that while he felt alone during that time, that he wasn’t alone. His friend was sitting quietly beside him hoping they could figure this out together. He began to realize that God was with him at the very least in the form of this friend. That his friend was suffering as he was. And that perhaps, God was suffering just as he was. This led him to his understanding of God as a vulnerable, changing God. A God who was a part of the stuff of his life, being just as vulnerable to pain and sorrow as he was. And while God was experiencing pain as he was, God was also showing him that he had the strength to get through this. He wasn’t alone and his understanding of God being with him, helped him to find that strength.
But when we’re in the middle of our darkness and pain, we often don’t know how to find a way out. We feel mired down in the pain, and we feel alone. Where do we find that strength to go on. Where are the epiphanies of our soul? How do we use the darkness to transform our difficulty to strength?
Our song today that Alysoun sang so beautifully says, “Oh the darkness takes courage, the darkness takes time, Living in the darkness brings a different state of mind, The darkness knows healing, the darkness knows change; Oh, Mother darkness, I return to you again.”
There’s something about a dark time that is healing. It’s like the earthy loam in which seeds are germinated. We bury our pain and our confusion in our deep selves, burrowing down to find some comfort. We often cut ourselves off from others as we enter a cocoon of our despair.
There is a reason for us to go through these times. Because our spirits are hurting and they need healing. “Living in the darkness brings a different state of mind.” We mull over our difficulty; we turn it over and over, looking for a way in or a way out. Then sometimes when we’re just so tired, our souls quiet us. Our spirits rest. We take time to let go of these difficulties and rest our tired souls in the dark. It’s a meditation of winter, of time taken out from life.
Then when our spirit has rested, sometimes we’ll start to feel some strength again. We’ll stick our heads out of the cocoon and begin to see what’s there. There might be a message on our answering machine from a friend who is worried about us. Our partner may be sitting there waiting for us, patiently understanding that we needed that healing time. The sun might be coming through the window, melting the snow, showing the possibility of spring. Within the darkness, our spirit has begun to grow out toward the light. Light comes to us from people who love us, from our own innate strength, from the Universe that sends us light and energy.
Rachel Naomi Remen, a psychotherapist who works in a health care setting, tells stories of how her patients find their own healing. She had a young patient whose name was David. He had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes right after he turned seventeen. In response to the information that he would have to be on a special diet and take insulin daily, he shut down. He took his anger about his disease and shut it inside and went into a deep depression.
He spent several months in therapy with Rachel when he came in one day and recounted a dream he had had. In his dream, he saw a small Buddha statue in the center of a room. He was alone in the room with the statue and he felt a sense of peace. This surprised him since he wasn’t a very spiritual person. But as he sat peacefully with the Buddha statue, all of sudden a knife was thrown from somewhere outside that buried itself deep in the chest of the Buddha. He felt shocked and betrayed. He felt his anger rise about the unfairness about life.
And then as he watched, the statue began to grow. Very slowly, it grew with its face still very peaceful, larger and larger, the knife still in place. Finally, as the Buddha was several feet tall, the knife became a tiny speck on the chest of the peaceful, smiling Buddha.
David felt a huge relief in the dream, like he was released from his anger. As he told Rachel about his dream, he began to realize the significance of the feelings he had in the dream as being the feelings he had about his disease. The dream had shown him that as he grew, his illness would become a smaller and smaller part of who he was. The knife didn’t go away in the dream, just like his disease wouldn’t go away. But he saw that he could handle it. He could see himself as a whole person again, not a sick one.
Sometimes our spirits will give us this knowledge in a dream, or we’ll read something in a book that opens a door, or someone will say something that makes it feel possible that we can be healed from our pain. That little bit of help can grow into something miraculous to us. It can feel like a lifesaver to us.
But we have to look up from our self absorption, from our own despair to begin to see what was around us all the time. Naomi, in the Bible, had Ruth, her daughter in law beside her the whole time she was grieving. Ruth offered her the possibility of continuing love, despite the loss of her son. When Naomi finally saw that there was possibility and hope around her in the form of the crops being harvested, she began to heal and recognize her own strength. She wasn’t alone and there were possibilities for a new life.
The celebrations we honor today are festivals of light, celebrations of finding light in the darkness. They honor the hope that ancient people had for the light and warmth returning to the land so their crops could grow and they wouldn’t starve. The Hebrew people celebrated a lamp lighted with a bit of oil that lasted through a hard time. A miracle of light that represented their faith overcoming the oppression of others. Jesus’ birth that we honor at Christmas celebrates the birth of a man who could be a savior to his people who were also oppressed. More hope in the midst of darkness.
The angels came and appeared before the shepherds and a great light shown in the dark fields. The angels said to the shepherds, “Behold, do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”