Last night we experienced a prolonged power outage in White Bear Lake.  I was returning from an evening at the Guthrie Theatre with some parishioners, and when we turned on to the main road through White Bear, we encountered unsettling darkness.  There were no traffic lights functioning, no street lights, no outside lights from buildings, and few lights emanating from the inside of buildings.  A storm had passed through our town, trees had fallen upon power lines, and we were without light.

When I arrived at my house, I fumbled with my keys, eventually finding the one that granted passage.  The darkness of my house matched the darkness of all the other homes in my neighborhood.  I lit a candle, amazed at just how much light a single flame generates.  My dog needed his walk, so I leashed him up and we headed out.

My neighborhood was filled with downed trees and limbs, and because it was so dark, we stumbled through many of them. After just a few minutes, however, I became not only accustomed to the darkness, but welcoming of it.  I could actually see the night sky.  I became more attuned to the sounds around me and to the feel of the wind upon my face.  My body seemed to come alive and attentive in the darkness.  My walk last night was special, even sacred, and I’m not sure that it would have happened were it not for the blessing of darkness.

Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer poet beloved and respected by so many, wrote a short poem about darkness.

To Know the Dark by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

The God we worship is a God of both light and darkness.  It seems, however, that we modern folk wish to relegate God only to the light.  When we do so, we are missing out on much that could instruct and help us on our journey of life.  As Berry suggests, “the dark, too, blooms and sings.”  The angels of God, harbingers of good news, travel in both light and darkness.

When I speak of darkness, of course, I am referring to much more than just physical darkness.  Always within the darknesses of disappointment, depression, and even despair is the presence of God, of God’s mercy, of God’s grace. Sometimes when we go into that darkness with a light, we become blinded by the very light that is intended to assist us.  Instead, perhaps we may come to trust that God is found in both light and darkness. Perhaps we may dare proceed into the darknesses of our lives without light. Perhaps when we do so, we may experience darkness not as the home of peril but as a welcoming blanket that covers and protects, friend rather than foe.  May we resist rushing to the light before experiencing the blessings of the dark.

~Father Art