Called From Darkness

I was reading a devotional by Philip Gulley this morning. (He's a Quaker author from the Midwest, who has written a delightful series of novels, as well as non-fiction.) He spoke about the verse in Isaiah 9:2. In The Message this reads "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. For those who lived in a land of deep shadows - light! Sunbursts of light!"

Now as I've said many times, one of my pet peeves is equating darkness with evil and light with goodness, since all life begins in darkness. However, he referred to this passage as one that calls us to a journey, which gave me a different perspective.

Yes, growth begins in the dark. We must have dark to have life. But (with the notable exceptions of the fungi, and such) we also need light. Without light, we do not grow very far. Like so many truths, this is not an either/or, but a both/and. We need both. And that is what we must remember. We need both. Dark is not bad. It's only a necessary condition for growth. The Solstice represents both - the change from light to dark, or from dark to light. So will our lives be.

My most recent own personal solstice was when my best friend died of cancer. The event threw my life into chaos, so I didn't really know how to put it back together again. Then I moved to Klamath Falls, which has been my cocoon. Out of that cocoon and darkness, has been born a new person, with new hopes and dreams - a part of myself which would not have seen the light of day without the darkness in which it was born.

So let us not be afraid of the dark, but learn to welcome it, and look to see what new life it seeks to raise in us. And let us also welcome the light, which completes the growth begun in the dark.