“Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?” ~Maurice Freehill
There were moments, growing up in a big old house, that I admit I didn’t want to go up to bed alone. I don’t really know why… but the dark had its way of gripping me tightly and making my heart beat a little faster than normal. So I wonder… what was it I was afraid of? There were no monsters or creatures that hid under my bed or in my closet. I was sure to check the probable hiding spaces out quite often. The unknown factor was so broad, and so vague… it always is, isn’t it? We are afraid of what we cannot see… what we don’t know to be fact. What “might” be hiding beyond the light.
There are days I feel that now. And nights that just seem darker than usual. The moon sometimes takes away just enough of the darkness, but keeps me wondering what is out there, beyond what I can see at night.
I know as you read this, and I ask you to think about one of your darkest moments, you can find it pretty easily. We all have those. We all find different sources of light to take us out of those moments or days, or even months and years. And at the risk of sounding trite, without one we would never know or even understand the other.
I often try to look at life as a cycle, as a day fades to night, and then back to day… or fall turns cold and dark and winter then becomes spring again. We can’t stop it from happening, no matter how hard we try… with or without us in the world, the sun will come up again tomorrow morning, and these last few weeks of winter will soon fade to green leaves and buds on the trees. No matter what we do…. It will happen.
As it is with our own “mini-seasons” or days, our own lives that we experience… good, bad or indifferent. The darkest days always find glimmers of sunlight. And in time, we find that perhaps what we thought was dark, really wasn’t, and that even when the sun goes down, the moon is bright. Sometimes, in the darkest hour, if we just look beyond our own shadow, we realize there is light in everything. There is a chance to be uncomfortable in the process, and in that… having faith that the light will come. In some way, and in some form… The darkness won’t last.
I still may not want to go to bed alone tonight. I may check the closet and under the bed, just to make sure. And when I turn out the light, I may keep my eyes open just long enough to see the moon falling through my window, reminding me that the sun will be there when I open my eyes again. What I may not be able to see and what I don’t know don’t matter now. Because even tonight, even in the darkest hour… comes the light.
“The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.” ~Joseph Campbell
“There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light.” ~N.P. Willis
“You can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in.” ~Arlo Guthrie
