Walking in the Dark

by Rollie J.

Cresting the top of the dike, I observe Orion, lying on his side hovering over the now darkened eastern horizon. Our faithful mutt Bruno runs frantically to and fro, his tail wagging in pure delight as he basks in the thousands of scents that remain invisible and undetected by Shane and me. It’s 10 p.m.-ish, and we are out for our nightly walk to exercise the dog and digest a multitude of topics from teenage angst to current politics. There is no moon visible tonight as is often the case, and a deep darkness has overcome the land. We clamor our way down on to the hardpacked ice of the frozen reed-choked coulee.

Shane has flipped on the flashlight of his cell phone to find his way through a maze of cattails. He relies heavily on this light for safety and security. I prefer allowing my eyes to adjust naturally and feel my way by observing the white of the snow on the ice. I ask politely several times for him to turn it off, as it is difficult to adjust from the tiny area of bright light of his phone to the light of night. He reluctantly shuts it off, and mumbles something to the effect of; “But why dad?!”

At each new bend in the coulee, or slight difficulty on our route he turns his phone light back on disrupting the adjustment of my eyes to the natural lack of light. Each time I quietly persuade him to turn it off. He does so with great hesitation but finally concedes. What is it that makes us so afraid of the dark? Sometimes it is good to know, to feel, and to sit and walk in the darkness.

For the past six or seven years, I’ve led a men’s retreat for ten men at a tiny cabin in the northern woods of Minnesota. This rustic deer shack is in a remote, isolated backwoods area and we do our retreat in the depth of winter normally during the coldest month of January. The shack has two wood stoves and propane lights. No electricity, nor running water. The retreats have proven to be a superb time for men to slow down, rest, rejuvenate, pray, converse, and fellowship.

On each of these retreats, I ask the men to bundle up following supper as we head out for a night hike. We don our snowshoes and head out into the often, sub-zero temperatures. On many of these night hikes, we’ve been fortunate to have a brilliant moon shining down on us to light up the surrounding landscape and draw our attention skyward. Sometimes, the moon has been missing, and instead, we are treated to a sky-dome filled with thousands and thousands of stars including the ephemeral and cloudy Milky Way. Sometimes we experience a cloud-filled evening or snowfall when a heavy darkness pervades.

No matter what the conditions, the natural tendency of even grown men is to lean on and rely heavily on the artificial light of their headlamps. When I ask the group to silence their headlamps, you can almost hear and feel the hesitation and resistance. They just don’t want to let go of the security and safety of that artificial light. They seem to cling to that tiny synthetic light source.  What is it that makes us so afraid of the dark? Sometimes it is good to know, to feel, and to sit and walk in the darkness.

The reality is that we will spend one-half of our lives in darkness. This is the reality of God’s rhythms of sunrise and sunset, winter and summer, spring and fall, planting and harvest times, growing season and fallow season, daytime and darkness. Sometimes we forget that God is the one who created darkness. Darkness is not bad in and of itself. Is not God present, working, available, accessible, and all-powerful in the dark? We don’t need to run and hide, cower, or fear the dark. In fact, sometimes it is good, Godly, and right to know, to feel, and sit and walk in the darkness. We will all go through dark and difficult times in our lives. It just comes with being human. St. John of the Cross wrote his poem about “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Many of us will most likely experience one or more of these darker seasons in our lives. I think I’ve experienced a couple in my own life.

Joshua Press writes about this season so eloquently: “Have you ever felt alone in a meaningless universe, unable to bear going through the motions, having no sense of direction, and feeling like you have lost all hope? You could be going through a ‘Dark Night of the Soul’…

The dark night of the soul is a stage in personal development when a person undergoes a difficult and significant transition to a deeper perception of life and their place in it. This enhanced awareness is accompanied by a painful shedding of previous conceptual frameworks such as an identity, relationship, career, habit, or belief system that previously allowed them to construct meaning in their life. The hardest part of the dark night of the soul is to face your shadow which contains the repressed parts of yourself such as your fears, desires, traumas, and beliefs.”

Well said, Josh! I particularly like how he phrased this last sentence: facing our shadow side. Most of us avoid that at all costs. If we just stay busy enough, and move fast enough, and never enter the dark, and think positive thoughts… maybe we won’t have to look at our shadow side. Maybe this is part of why most of us fear the dark.

But the truth is, we all go through dark and difficult stages or phases in our life. And Jesus himself and his sidekick the Holy Spirit are right there in the darkness with us. Jesus doesn’t just show up when it’s all light, and life is filled with rainbows, unicorns, and butterflies. He doesn’t wait till we’ve got our act together, when we’re back on top, when we’ve got things figured out, and our mood has finally leveled off. God is maybe even more present and available to us when we are broken, rejected, deflated, depressed, anxious, exhausted, clueless, floundering, searching, desperate, and down and out. It is here that Jesus meets us to help us shed what is not helpful to us. He helps us to let go of, to walk away from our many false selves, our ego images, and masks that we present to the world. Out of sitting or walking in the darkness with Jesus, we will come to be a truer, more authentic version of who God created us to be.

I just finished the fall season of bowhunting for deer. On morning hunts, I am always sitting in my tree-stand a good 30-50 minutes before even first light. I sit in the dark. There is nothing to see or to do to distract me. I am forced to face myself and my creator. The great thing about a morning hunt… is that always, without fail, without exception there comes a dawn. The darkness does not last forever. Sunrise and light always return. Everyday. Every season.

In our Celebration service, we sometimes sing the song Here I Am to Worship.

Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness.
Opened my eyes, let me see.
Beauty that made this heart adore you,
Hope of a life spent with you.

So, take heart if you are walking through a dark day, a dark week, or a dark season in your life. Lean into it… don’t run away from it. Jesus promises to step down into the darkness with you, to open your eyes and let you see. And He, and He alone will bring you back out of the darkness refreshed, renewed, and recreated in His image. We do not need to fear the dark but instead walk with Jesus in the dark.

-- Rollie J.