Posts tagged darkness

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The darkness of not knowing.

“This lonely prayer, which Abraham Heschel once described as a share in the pathos of God, is the only way to true discernment.

To reach this wisdom which is more than talk and ideas, one must do more than talk and think.

The way to this knowledge is through the darkness of not knowing, and a living, shared experience of the poverty and helplessness of Christ as he is in the world.”  Francis Martin, Touching God

….as He is in the world.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the darkness of not knowing.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

A bright darkness.

“In this first-ever-in-my-life experience of being unconditionally loved, I moved back and forth between mild ecstacy and hushed trembling.  

The aura was what George Maloney years later would describe as “bright darkness.”

And bewildering strength.


The moment lingered on and on in a timeless now, until without warning I felt a hand grip my heart.  

I could barely breathe.  It was abrupt and startling.

The awareness of being loved was no longer gentle, tender and comfortable.  


The love of Christ, the crucified son of God, for me, took on the wildness, passion, and fury of a sudden spring storm.  Like a bursting dam, spasms of convulsive crying erupted from the depths of my being.  

He died on the cross for me!

I had known that before, but in the way that Cardinal Newman describes as notional knowledge - abstract, far away, largely irrelevant to the gut issues of life, just another trinket in the dusty pawnshop of dogmatic beliefs.  

But in one blinding moment of salvific truth, it was real knowledge calling for personal engagement of my mind and heart.  

Christianity was no longer simply a moral code but a love affair, the thrill, the excitement, the incredible, passionate joy of being loved and falling in love with Jesus Christ.”  

Brennan Manning, Lion and Lamb - The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus

…even the darkness will not be dark to you.  Psalm 139:12

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The luminous darkness.

“In an appendix to a term paper, one of my students included the following in his description of his experience as a deep-sea diver:

“Enroute to the floor of the ocean the diver first passes through the ‘belt of fishes.’  This is a wide band of light reflected from the surface of the sea. 

From this area he moves to a depth of water that cannot be penetrated by light above the surface.  It is dark, forboding, and eerie. 

The diver’s immediate reaction is apt to be one of fear and sometimes a sudden spasm of panic that soon passes. 

As he drops deeper and deeper into the abyss, slowly his eyes begin to pick up the luminous quality of the darkness; what was fear is relaxed and he moves into the lower region with confidence and peculiar vision.”

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me
Even the night shall be light about me…”

The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.  Psalm 139:11-12” 

Howard Thurman, The Luminous Darkness

 
…dive deep.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the luminous darkness.