Reflection for June 11, 2014

Learning to Walk in the Dark

Christianity preaches a spirituality that is sometimes too solar. It often itendifies God’s presence with the “sunny part” of our lives. If we have faith, a solar spirituality says, then we will always feel God’s presence, we will have certainty of belief, and we will have reliable answers to our questions and prayers. The problem with this comes when darkness descends on our lives: we lose our job, our marriage falls apart, we have a serious health issue, we struggle with one of our children, we begin to doubt what we have always believed, God seems very far away. According to Barbara Brown Taylor we need a more lunar spirituality. She writes, “When I go out on my porch, the moon never looks the same way twice. Some nights it is as round as a headlight; other nights it is thinner than the sickle hanging in my garage. Some nights it is high in the sky, and other nights low over the mountains. Some nights it is altogether gone, leaving a vast web of stars that are brighter in its absence. All in all, the moon is a truer mirror for my soul than the sun that looks the same way every day.” She encourages us to trust the rhythm of light and darkness in our lives, rather than oppose it. 

Barbara Brown Taylor
Learning to Walk in the Dark