November 4, 2015

Isaiah 9:2

The people who walked in darkness
   have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
   on them light has shined. 

Light of my life

Why is it, O Lord, that I seek you more in the darkness than the light?

Days of light come, sun shining, filling every corner in me until I burst with the joy of praise at being alive, knowing you are the Being, the Light, the Life I know within as well, no better, than I know myself.

And then days come when I know nothing, feeling all I am and ever have been is lost, wondering if I was ever worth mentioning. All I am and have done seems a wisp of smoke, thinnest of clouds, soon scattered, mattering not to anyone, even myself.

Why does this darkness weigh so heavily on my heart that light, joy and the Wonder of Love flee, leaving me as lost and alone as ever?

And why, even now, do these bleak words awaken tears of relief that lift edges of the dark curtain, allowing hope’s sweet light to enter the corners of consciousness?

I will never understand this heart of mine … or regret its ways. Never. For it always leads back to you and ever it shall be.

It is the darkness that brings me to my knees, aching for the Light of Love to open me to the soul within that I might know my true nature.

The heart’s inner darkness aches of emptiness, leaving only one place to go where again I might know that you are ever there, the depth of this soul.

The darkness drives me beyond my unfulfilled hopes, dreams and desires, grieving them all. And in my tears to see, again, the Light who is always, and always there, who appears whenever I spin my little words and release the contortions of my heart.

You are always there, loving me, the Light in the self’s dark land.

So I wonder: Do you to smile, Holy One, as I sink beneath black waves of despair? Do you see and say, “Soon, he will come home and know?”

And yes, I do know, thank you very much. I know the darkness is more friend than foe. It brings me back to you.

Pr. David L. Miller