Darkness Before the Dawn

On Solstice Sunday, I traditionally offer the congregation a series of readings and reflections instead of a sermon, allowing us all to enter deeply into this time of dark waiting.

At this time of solstice, let us not rush so quickly to the sun, to the light.  For we must start in the place we all began, in the darkness.  Let us not demonize the darkness, the place of coolness and shadows.

Rev. Sue Spencer writes:

[These long nights and short days are] a reminder to savor the darkness, even as we approach the hinge of the year.  These long nights and short days have a purpose. Without times of rest, nothing would grow.  With perpetual sunlight, there would be an eternal desert.

We also need darkness for our own growth.  Because the soul grows underground, we need times of rest, of Sabbath, to let our roots be watered.  We need times to acknowledge powerlessness—that we are not in charge of everything after all.  We need times in which to let things happen, rather than to make them happen.

As the darkest time of year approaches, let’s remember its promise.  Before we were born, the darkness held and protected us.  It shelters the seed full of potential.  It’s the place of rest from the blinding sun.  Not only that, but our darkest times can be times of creativity and hope.  That’s when we may look up, and catch a glimpse of shimmering stars.

Poet David Whyte knows of seeing in the dark.  This is his poem, entitled “Darkness:”

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and
the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

Unlike the rest of us, poets seem not to fear darkness.  They understand, in some cellular, organic way, that darkness holds the key to most things we are searching for.  It can unlock and free us from the smallness of our lives.  One such poet, Unitarian Universalist Mary Oliver, explores this very insight in an essay entitled “Winter Hours.”

“Winter Hours—Part One” by Mary Oliver: in which she considers darkness, winter, faith, and hope.

Because my workday begins early, it begins, in winter, in the huge, tense blackness of the world.

The house is hard cold.  Winter walks up and down the town swinging his censer, but no smoke or sweetness comes from it, only the sour, metallic frankness of salt and snow.  I dress in the dark and hurry out.  The sleepy dogs walk with me a few strides, then they disappear.  The water slaps crisply upon the cold-firmed sand.  I listen intently, as though it is a language the ocean is speaking.  There are no stars, nor a moon.

Still I can tell that the tide is rising, as it speaks stingingly, and I can see a little from the street lamps and from the amber lights along the wharf.  The water tosses its black laces and flaunts, streaked with the finest rain.  Now and again the dogs come back, their happy feet dashing the sand.  

In the winter I am writing about, there is much darkness.  Darkness of nature, darkness of event, darkness of the spirit.  The sprawling darkness of not knowing.  We speak of the light of reason.  I would speak here of the darkness of the world, and the light of ____.  But I don’t know what to call it.  Maybe hope.  Maybe faith, but not a shaped faith—only, say, a gesture, or a continuum of gestures.  But probably it is closer to hope, that is more active, and far messier than faith must be.  Faith, as I imagine it, is tensile, and cool, and has no need of words.  Hope, I know, is a fighter and a screamer.

Before we reach the sea wall again, and cross the yard, it is no longer night.  We stand by the door of the house.  We stand upon the thin blue peninsula that leads to the sharp, white day.  A small black cat bounds from under the rose bushes; the dogs bark joyfully.

This is the beginning of every day.

Let us enter into a time of silent reflection. [several minutes of silent reflection]

“Winter Hours—Part Two” by Mary Oliver: in which she considers storms, wind, the nature of evil, and the coming of the day.

We hear on the forecast that it may snow, or it may rain, and there will be high wind.  Certainly there is wind.  The rest passes out to sea, but the wind is sufficient.  Clap of invisible hands and all the winds together, those breezy brothers, they are on their way. The storm comes on an incoming tide.  Sometimes, in summer, the water seems not only to catch and reprise the sun’s light, but to contain light of its own making, that rises from below.  Not now.  Now it is all darkness that rises, to meet this frieze of surface waves.  The wind pounds . . as ocean rolls to the shore [to] smash hugely, row after row.  For hours it continues: still dreadful, still beautiful.  At the sixth hour, it began to descend.  So the storm passed, that one.

Now comes a peaceful day, all day long.  Then comes evil, crossing the street, going out of its way with determined steps and a face like a nail—invasive, wanting to molest, to hurt, to stain, to dismay, to dishearten.  This is no discourse, I have not even the beginnings of sufficient knowledge to hunt down the reasons why.  I suppose then, those lives soaked in evil, are miserable and so they ever despise happiness.  I suppose they feel powerless and therefore must exert power wherever they can, which is so often upon those unable to comprehend what is happening, much less defend themselves.

Where does such a force come from?  What does it mean?  A voice very faint, and inside me, offers a possibility: how shall there be redemption and resurrection unless there has been a great sorrow?  And isn’t struggle and rising the real work of our lives?  Maybe in ten years I will have another idea.  Meanwhile I know this: evil is one part of our beautiful world.  I, too, have been forced to stand close to it, and have felt the almost muscular agony of impotence before it, unable to interfere or assuage or do anything effective.

Though I do—oh yes I do—believe the soul is improvable.  Oh sweet and defiant hope!

Now winter, the winter I am writing about, begins to ease.  And what, if anything has been determined, selected, nailed down?  This is the lesson of age—events pass, things change, trauma fades, good fortune rises, fades, rises again but different.  Whereas what happens when one is twenty, as I remember it, happens forever.  I have not been twenty for a long time!

Weary and sleepy, winter slowly polishes the moon through the long nights, then recedes to the north, its body thinning and melting, like a bundle of old riddles left, one more year, unanswered.

The sun rolls toward the north and I feel, gratefully, its brightness flaming up once more.

Let us enter into a time of silent reflection

[Music for Reflection: “Endless Night”
From the Broadway Cast recording of “The Lion King.”]

Where has the starlight gone?
Dark is the day
How can I find my way home?

Home is an empty dream
Lost to the night
Father, I feel so alone

You promised you'd be there
Whenever I needed you
Whenever I call your name
You're not anywhere

I'm trying to hold on
Just waiting to hear your voice
One word, just a word will do
To end this nightmare

When will the dawning break
Oh endless night
Sleepless I dream of the day

When you were by my side
Guiding my path
Father, I can't find the way

You promised you'd be there
Whenever I needed you
Whenever I call your name
You're not anywhere

I'm trying to hold on
Just waiting to hear your voice
One word, just a word will do
To end this nightmare

I know that the night must end
And that the sun will rise
And that the sun will rise

I know that the clouds must clear
And that the sun will shine
And that the sun will shine

I know
Yes, I know
The sun will rise
Yes, I know
I know
The clouds must clear

I know that the night must end
I know that the sun will rise
And I'll hear your voice deep inside

I know that the night must end
And that the clouds must clear
The sun
The sun will rise
The sun
The sun will rise

But What Of Us, Today?

But what of us here, today?  What candles can we light that we can call our own?  What lights can be ours this present moment?  Is it enough for us to simply celebrate the festivals of ancient others?  Is it enough to peer into nature’s mysteries and learn her lessons of darkness and dawn?  Or do we, as a Unitarian Universalist people of faith, have our own light to shine forth into the world?

We do have a light that our world in shadow so desperately needs to see.

Ours is a light of radical inclusiveness, which offers a heart-felt embrace to all the free thinkers, the fringe dwellers, and those who choose a different path to self and community. 

It is a light of reason, which burns away superstition and ignorance. 

Ours is a light of humbleness, which dares not reduce to simplicity the Infinite Mystery of us all. 

It is a light of the search, which knows that truth, though eternal, is also powerfully personal. 

Ours is a light of loving-kindness, which sees the struggle within each person and affirms the preciousness at their core.

And we have a symbol of our light.  We have our chalice, a lamp we kindle at every worship service. 

The chalice reminds us of the universal truth the burns at the center of all spiritual traditions.

It reminds us of the fire of compassionate commitment that can co-create all things anew.

This chalice reminds us of the flame of freedom, the right of conscience to worship as we choose.

It reminds us of the fires of inquisition and persecution that killed so many who struggled for the free faith we now so easily enjoy.

This Chalice reminds us of our faith—a vibrant energy that joins the eternal wisdom of the ages with the transforming pulses of the present.

Our light stands in a long line of light, a light that stretches back in time and will stretch far forward into years beyond our knowing.

Ritual Lighting of the Unitarian Universalist Chalice

And so, in the Spirit of past, present, and the future, let us kindle our light of faith. 

CONGREGATIONAL RESPONSE

In the light of truth,
The warmth of community
The fire of commitment
We gather this day.
May the flame we now kindle
Be to us a symbol
Of the holiness we seek.