Strangers to darkness
In pondering again the various gospel accounts of what we call the Christmas story I'm struck, strangely for the first time, by how predominantly dark it would have been as these events played out. We're so accustomed to living with electricity, with light on demand at any time of day or night that we're pretty much strangers to darkness being a constant, darkness as a presence at the edge of the small localised glow of whatever candle or oil lamp I might be able to light.
How dark and gloomy must that stable have been where Mary lay and gave birth. No hyper-illuminated medical centre, scrubbed and gleaming but a bed in the straw and at best an oil lamp or a couple of candles. She and Joseph likely arrived after dark too as the inn was already full. With no streetlights, no battery-run torches, no security lighting at the back of the inn, a woman on the brink of childbirth makes do in an unfamiliar, dark place.
The Magi too must have seen darkness as a friend rather than something to be avoided else how could they have followed the star? Journeying by night to an unknown destination in an unfamiliar land in starlight at best, one bright star a guiding presence.
And those poor unsuspecting shepherds, settling down for the night near their flocks, only starlight perhaps giving them any sense of their surroundings. Then the sudden, terrifying intrusion of light all around them. Eyes deeply attuned to the darkness of night suddenly, blindingly dazzled.
An invitation to slower and deeper
I wonder what we've lost by having instant and unthinking access to light pretty much anywhere, anytime. And in a way that, as unthinkingly, can turn night into day. Since I stopped working and the rhythm of my weekdays isn't kick-started by the early morning alarm, I've noticed how much I've enjoyed the dark months, how I welcome the gradual fading of the light through September and into October. It really does feel like an invitation into some slower, deeper rhythm of living, sleeping longer, being less active. The darkness feels like rest for the eyes, a counter-balance to the sunlight and long daylight of summer. Part of a welcome annual rhythm. In the morning, my practice in the dark months is to use no electric light but light a candle or two and open the curtains and blinds and wait for, and watch, the gathering light as the sun returns.
There's an implicit narrative in many of our stories and myths that dark equals bad and light equals good. That feels not only too simplistic to me but also misses the point that we need both and indeed one would have no meaning without the other. Can we relearn to welcome the dark? To invite the new ways of seeing and being that might be an invitation when the light fades?
Maybe walking in darkness isn't a bad thing. Maybe there are things to be seen and learned and known there too.
Gus MacLeod