Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch. I was there when it was written [and] there is a magic deeper still which you do not know. Your knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if you could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, you would have read there a different incantation. Aslan (paraphrased): The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
There is a kind of seeing that becomes possible only in the stillness and the darkness. And it is given as we learn to consent, often gradually and through great personal struggle, to the slow work of God in our lives and in the world entrusted to us.
From the very beginning, the book of Genesis speaks of the whole Created order arising as one full cycle of darkness and light. Evening came and morning came and it was the first day (Genesis 1:3).
Here is the deeper magic that runs thread-like through the gospel Jesus lived and proclaimed. Nowhere do we find him asking his followers to avoid the complex shadows of what it means to be fully human. Rather, he makes plain the uncomfortable and painful truth that all of it is a tangle of darkness and light, and he shows by example how we also are to carry it patiently through to resurrection.
Anton Darius, unsplash.com
It is a struggle which Jesus himself was willing to embody, walking among us and becoming the numinous light in the darkness.
It asks us to move slowly.
It asks us to deepen awareness.
It asks us to hold paradox.
It asks us to open our hearts.
It asks us to live the mystery.
“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give sight to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1: 78-79)
Lynn Darke