Encountering the Mystery through Darkness
Mystical living brings us to that place where light and night are not-two.
N.B. For the past couple of months, my friends on Patreon and I have been exploring the question “What is mysticism?” by drawing on the wisdom of Evelyn Underhill and Bernard McGinn. While I believe it is impossible to ever nail down a topic as nuanced as mysticism in a single definition, I think we can explore a variety of ways to at least approach the topic, if not definitively define it. This is the third of five posts where I offer brief invitations for some of the different ways people like you and I might be able to encounter the mystery at the heart of mysticism: a mystery that can never be fully captured in words or earthly ideas (Note: if you’d like to join this conversation with me in monthly Zoom meetings, join Patreon by clicking here).
A Classic Mystical “Location” for Encountering the Mystery: Darkness
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)
One of the most powerful images for God is that of light. “Let there be light” was one of the initial creative acts expressed by the Holy One at the beginning of the Genesis creation myth; ages later, Jesus of Nazareth would proclaim, “I am the light of the world.” So powerful is the bond between the supreme being and the splendor of luminosity, that we run the risk of falling into a dualistic understanding of light: in other words, of seeing darkness as somehow opposed to the divine. In this oppositional way of seeing things, light is good, and therefore darkness is not-so-good.
Thankfully, many of the mystics can help us to see that, no matter how sacred and spiritual light might be, the absence of light should not be understood to signify the absence of God.
There’s a reason why two of the greatest mystical classics in the Western contemplative tradition are The Cloud of Unknowing and The Dark Night of the Soul. Even in the earliest centuries of the Christian era, great mystics like Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote beautifully about encountering the Creator in the hidden and benighted places of our lives— a recognition that began with Moses’s encounter with the Holy in the midst of a cloud atop Mount Sinai.
What are the implications here? We all have times of darkness, of uncertainty, of loss and suffering and even betrayal. If we assume that only light brings us to heaven, then we will either judge or reject the shadowy places that life invites us into. Such shadowy places include the “darknesses” of depression and other mental health challenges, of grieving, of fear, of suffering whether our own or that of those we love… I’m sure the list could go on. These may represent times or seasons of our lives that we do not relish, that seem traumatizing or pointlessly painful. But when we simply give ourselves over to these most difficult moments, they can also surprise us as portals into a rich and meaningful experience of the divine presence.
I don’t think any of the classical mystics would have counseled us to seek out suffering for its own sake, but neither would they have ever suggested that the dark places are to be avoided. When we allow ourselves to meet the unfathomable dark places on their own terms, they can be sacred indeed, and teach us wisdom, and sometimes even introduce us to the one who comes to us veiled in mystery.
Quotation sources: Psalm 139:11-12; Genesis 1:3; John 8:12.