The dark night

By Tyler Tankersley

My sons, Henry and Owen, amaze me. They share a bedroom and sleep on a bunk bed. There is no nightlight in their room, and they have never once expressed a fear of the dark. That has shocked me as I've watched them grow. I was a kid who was terrified of the dark and required a plugged-in nightlight to make it through bedtime without screaming.

Darkness scares us because it is the ultimate unknown. It is not as if we are definitively sure there are monsters in the dark; it's the fact that we cannot be completely confident there are not monsters waiting to attack us. Darkness terrifies us because it places us in a position of ultimate vulnerability, doubt and confusion.

As I have grown older, I appreciate darkness more and more. Darkness is what allows us to see the stars in all their beauty. Darkness is what conditions my body to get restful sleep. Darkness even provides me the opportunity to rely on my senses other than sight. While I may no longer be as fearful of physical darkness, adulthood has brought even scarier moments of inner darkness, vulnerability, doubt and confusion.

It may be challenging and trying work, but dealing with the darkness within ourselves is true soul work. In her book, "Learning to Walk in the Dark," Barbara Brown Taylor wrote: "If outer darkness is the cloud where we store our inner fears, how much will the real world suffer from our collective fear of the dark? How much will we pay to fuel the engines that keep our world lit, rather than doing what is necessary to feel safer inside ourselves?"

The author of Psalm 139 understood darkness can be understood as an opportunity to express trust in the presence of God: "If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,' even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you" (Psalm 139:11-12). The psalmist understands God does not shy away from darkness, but works and walks within the mystery of the unknown.

My pastoral theology professor in seminary told us a story about darkness. His mother-in-law was dying of an inoperable brain tumor. She became sensitive to light and was only comfortable in total darkness. He was sitting with her one day, holding her hands, when she asked him to pray for her. He had no idea what to say. He started with the beginning words of Psalm 139. Though he had never intentionally set out to memorize it, he found himself citing the entire psalm to his dying mother-in-law. He said he caught himself at the words: "In your book were written all the days that were formed for me" (Psalm 139:16).

God does not promise us a night light; we will go through periods of darkness in our lives. But what we are assured is that, as we grapple through the scary mystery, we do not journey alone.