I was sitting in worship---silent worship the way Quakers historically have done it---and a man used a phrase that jumped out at me. He was talking about something and commented about something starting in the dark. I don’t actually remember anything else that was being said because my mind grabbed on to the phrase and began to work with it. And that is what I want to do with you in this inspirational piece. I want to work with it to see how it applies to our own time and what it means for us in this context.
As in any time I suppose, our own time has its fair share of problems. Some would argue it is quite bad and, for some, it is quite bad. If someone feels like life is not fair, who am I to argue that point? No one gets to decide for another just how bad things are nor, for that matter, how good things can be. There may well be some objective reality, but most of us are dealing with our perception of reality and with our own way of dealing with that reality. In this sense, my reality may well be different from your reality.
In my reality it makes sense to think some things do start in the dark. This means I probably cannot always know when something is starting because it is yet in the dark. Soon enough I may see evidence of it, but not yet. Let me illustrate with a couple examples.
As I was growing up on a farm, I always knew why springtime was such a special time. The doldrums of winter passed, grass grew green again, trees sprouted new leaves and it became warmer. It was also time to plant the crops and the garden. It all began with the seeds. Planting was a matter of sticking the seeds into the ground. Sometimes in the garden, we did this by hand. We take a few seeds and literally make a little hole in the ground and put the seed in the hole. On a broad scale, we did it with the tractor and planter. We could cover acres every day. Millions of seeds disappeared into the fertile soil.
What then? You waited. You just waited. You hoped there was enough moisture in the ground to cause the seed to sprout. Alternatively, you always feared when there was too much water. Would the ground be so wet, so the seeds in effect decayed, rather than sprouted? As a kid, it felt very much a risk and a potential miracle. I like that posture and hope never totally to lose it. Knowledge about the process need not erase the miraculous aspect of nature’s work.
Waiting was not easy. Some days I would sneak into a field of newly planted corn. I could not resist. I would go to a row and surreptitiously dig into the earth looking for a kernel. Having found one, I pulled away the dirt to see if the seed had sprouted. Of course, the first day I looked, I was disappointed. I expected some form of “magic”- put it in the ground and, voila, it would immediately sprout. Instead, I came to learn, natured worked miracles, not magic.
Soon enough, the seeds sprouted and within five to seven days on a warm Indiana week, the green shoot would poke above the ground to prove the seed had sprouted and was now growing into a predetermined form of corn. It was proof that something had started in the dark and now was coming into the light.
A second example is just as common. Each of us as human beings were started in the dark. When the sperm impregnated the egg, there I am in all of my human potentiality. None of us remember that exquisite moment. Maybe there was some subtle cosmic drumroll, but no one heard. In the old days we spent nine months in our own forming darkness. Even today with the instruments of observation, we are being formed in darkness. People are able to shine a light into our darkness and get a glimpse of that formation.
Like the new corn plant, we emerge out of our darkness through the womb heading into the visibility of our new world. I emerge as my own individual. I am ok to say that we have some predetermined form, even though I do not adhere to predestination. Our predetermined form affirms that each of us is a child of God and of the universe. Each of us is an expression of the Divine energy and love, which is at the throbbing heart of the universe. As such, we exist in the image of that Divine energy and love. We incarnate it in our own unique way. We are vessels of the glory of God.
Of course, all this can be perverted. I don’t want to tell that story here. Instead I want to stick to the miraculous work that is started in the dark and comes to full view in all its potentiality---be it a corn plant, a human being or some other form of energy and love. Even when our times are difficult, we can take some solace in the fact that there are things starting in this darkness. To take that solace is to have hope.
I think this is a clever, sophisticated way the Spirit works in our world. Because I believe this, nothing is hopeless. For sure, there may be almost no evidence that some things are being started in the darkness. It becomes a time of trust and trust is faith in action. It is a time of waiting. I know, however, that waiting is not passivity. Waiting means I keep trusting and hoping. These are action words. I keep doing what I can.
And then our miracle will come. I trust that because I trust the Spirit at work.
As in any time I suppose, our own time has its fair share of problems. Some would argue it is quite bad and, for some, it is quite bad. If someone feels like life is not fair, who am I to argue that point? No one gets to decide for another just how bad things are nor, for that matter, how good things can be. There may well be some objective reality, but most of us are dealing with our perception of reality and with our own way of dealing with that reality. In this sense, my reality may well be different from your reality.
In my reality it makes sense to think some things do start in the dark. This means I probably cannot always know when something is starting because it is yet in the dark. Soon enough I may see evidence of it, but not yet. Let me illustrate with a couple examples.
As I was growing up on a farm, I always knew why springtime was such a special time. The doldrums of winter passed, grass grew green again, trees sprouted new leaves and it became warmer. It was also time to plant the crops and the garden. It all began with the seeds. Planting was a matter of sticking the seeds into the ground. Sometimes in the garden, we did this by hand. We take a few seeds and literally make a little hole in the ground and put the seed in the hole. On a broad scale, we did it with the tractor and planter. We could cover acres every day. Millions of seeds disappeared into the fertile soil.
What then? You waited. You just waited. You hoped there was enough moisture in the ground to cause the seed to sprout. Alternatively, you always feared when there was too much water. Would the ground be so wet, so the seeds in effect decayed, rather than sprouted? As a kid, it felt very much a risk and a potential miracle. I like that posture and hope never totally to lose it. Knowledge about the process need not erase the miraculous aspect of nature’s work.
Waiting was not easy. Some days I would sneak into a field of newly planted corn. I could not resist. I would go to a row and surreptitiously dig into the earth looking for a kernel. Having found one, I pulled away the dirt to see if the seed had sprouted. Of course, the first day I looked, I was disappointed. I expected some form of “magic”- put it in the ground and, voila, it would immediately sprout. Instead, I came to learn, natured worked miracles, not magic.
Soon enough, the seeds sprouted and within five to seven days on a warm Indiana week, the green shoot would poke above the ground to prove the seed had sprouted and was now growing into a predetermined form of corn. It was proof that something had started in the dark and now was coming into the light.
A second example is just as common. Each of us as human beings were started in the dark. When the sperm impregnated the egg, there I am in all of my human potentiality. None of us remember that exquisite moment. Maybe there was some subtle cosmic drumroll, but no one heard. In the old days we spent nine months in our own forming darkness. Even today with the instruments of observation, we are being formed in darkness. People are able to shine a light into our darkness and get a glimpse of that formation.
Like the new corn plant, we emerge out of our darkness through the womb heading into the visibility of our new world. I emerge as my own individual. I am ok to say that we have some predetermined form, even though I do not adhere to predestination. Our predetermined form affirms that each of us is a child of God and of the universe. Each of us is an expression of the Divine energy and love, which is at the throbbing heart of the universe. As such, we exist in the image of that Divine energy and love. We incarnate it in our own unique way. We are vessels of the glory of God.
Of course, all this can be perverted. I don’t want to tell that story here. Instead I want to stick to the miraculous work that is started in the dark and comes to full view in all its potentiality---be it a corn plant, a human being or some other form of energy and love. Even when our times are difficult, we can take some solace in the fact that there are things starting in this darkness. To take that solace is to have hope.
I think this is a clever, sophisticated way the Spirit works in our world. Because I believe this, nothing is hopeless. For sure, there may be almost no evidence that some things are being started in the darkness. It becomes a time of trust and trust is faith in action. It is a time of waiting. I know, however, that waiting is not passivity. Waiting means I keep trusting and hoping. These are action words. I keep doing what I can.
And then our miracle will come. I trust that because I trust the Spirit at work.
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