This season of the return of Light (solstice) and the miracle of Light (Hanukkah) and the announcement of angels of doxa or glory and the birth of Christ incarnated (Christmas) and birthing community based on principles that are light-filled (Kwanzaa) promises a certain enlightenment to humanity for sure.
And the prelude to that arrival of enlightenment is an honoring of the dark (Advent). Sometimes that darkness is a gentle or tender darkness such as Rilke sings about:
You darkness, that I come from:
I love you more than all the fires
That fence in the world,
For the fire makes
A circle of light for everyone,
And then no one outside learns of you.
But the darkness pulls in everything:
Shapes and fires animals and myself,
How easily it gather them!—
Powers and people—
And it is possible a great energy
Is moving near me
I have faith in nights.
Wisely does Rilke talk of our origins as “darkness” that we come from. We all come from nine months of darkness and contentment in our mother’s womb. And that womb speaks of compassion as our origin.
Both Hebrew and Arabic connect the words “womb” and “compassion” in their languages. Would that connection were being heeded and practiced even more in Palestine and Sudan and Ukraine and around the world today.
A second dimension of darkness as our origins is the nothingness that precedes our existence, how we come from non-being. I recommend this practice: Add one year to your age and meditate on that time, a time when you did not yet exist. We come from a holy nothingness and Advent reminds us of that.
So too do the findings today about dark matter, dark energy and black holes from which so much evolves in the universe.
Yes, it is good to “have faith in nights” and to recognize the power of darkness as a source for existence. And to move beyond the fear of the dark which helps move people from ignorance and racism as well.
Besides a gentle darkness, there is also a strident one. Black holes certainly demonstrate a wild fierceness that refuses to be tamed. And what the mystics call the “dark night of the soul” names fierceness we are all feeling today. Angst, fear, even doom. Such psychic realities match cosmic realities.
Today we rightly talk about the “dark night of society” (Heschel) and the “dark night of our species” (myself) that all of humanity finds itself in. Advent and the mystics invite us not to run from such fierce darkness but to stick around and learn what it has to teach us. Not least of which is that nothingness is a prelude to a Great Coming.
As Eckhart tells us, I once had a dream. Though a man, I dreamt I was pregnant, pregnant with Nothingness. And out of that Nothingness God was born. Thus it is that Advent (the via negativa) leads to Christmas (the via creativa) and on to the via transformative (compassion and justice).
Astronauts who tell of how the great darkness and silence of space brought the mystic alive in them. Practitioners in AA and other addiction groups say the same thing. All learn to have faith in nights.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Original Blessing, pp. 148-172.
See also Fox, Meditations with Meister Eckhart, pp. 35-64.
Banner Image: Twilight mist in the Dalby Forest, Yorkshire. Photo by Rosie Sun on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you have faith in nights? How does that sustain you and even energize you during trials of personal or political dark nights?
Recommended Reading
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
Meditations with Meister Eckhart: A Centering Book
A centering book by Matthew Fox. This book of simple but rich meditations exemplifies the deep yet playful creation-centered spirituality of Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart was a 13th-century Dominican preacher who was a mystic, prophet, feminist, activist, defender of the poor, and advocate of creation-centered spirituality, who was condemned shortly after he died.
“These quiet presentations of spirituality are remarkable for their immediacy and clarity.” –Publishers Weekly.
4 thoughts on “Having Faith in Nights—Even Dark Nights”
….. I will get up in the very early morning hours of dark, quiet and stillness. There is
something inspiring about being awake before the new day dawning. Maybe it is consciousness of resurrection in the present ‘dark’ moment. A new breath, a new challenge, a new outlook, a new communion, an increased faith, and hopefully a new and improved ‘state of being’. It is not a goal, rather a new consciousness, a new presence, a new awareness.
When Jesus says, “Father, forgive them! For they don’t know what they are doing.”, is this not our
wake-up call? Who then will ‘follow the Teacher’ and walk, run, understand, more of ‘what we are
doing, and need to do, every day’? We decide of course what we will do every day. How we start our day then is very important. Love awaits, truth awaits, trials await, some suffering awaits, joy
awaits, inner peace awaits. Are we there for it? Are we receptive to it? Are we aware of our own
death and resurrection, and will we be willing to wholeheartedly engage in it? Are we ready by the
‘dawn of a new day’ for a ‘new way’? — BB 03 29 2024.
Faith in dark nights for me has to include not only the importance of our human struggle and hope for Love, Truth, Peace, Justice, Healing, Forgiveness, Transformation, Compassionate Diverse ONENESS in our personal and communal lives (especially war/suffering presently in Sudan, Palestine, and Ukraine), but everywhere in the world where there are injustices and human suffering… This faith includes the Presence of Our LOVING SOURCE~CREATOR’S SPIRIT working within, through, among Us in our evolving Eternal Souls in this physical Life on Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her living creatures/Her graceful abundance, and with-in All spiritual non-physical dimensions and the Eternal Afterlife….
I came across this prayer a few months ago. I keep coming back to it, for it speaks to a place deep within me, and so I share it with all of you.
Lord, it is night.
The night is for stillness
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
Let it be.
The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world
and of our own lives
rest in you.
The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us, and all who have no peace.
The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.
In your Name we pray. Amen
„Ein Raum darf nur so groß sein,
dass ich ihn füllen kann,
um ganz von mir umhüllt
geborgen in mir selbst, zu – sein.
Und dunkle, stille Nacht behütet
das innigliche, intime DU
in seiner kleinen Hütte!“
Allein in einer kleinen Hütte in den Bergen
habe ich die nächtliche Dunkelheit immer sehr geliebt
und schrieb am morgen diesen Text.