So, I'm currently reading a book called "Learning to Walk in the Dark" by one of my favorite preachers/writers: Barbara Brown Taylor. This is not a book review, I did not get this book for free, I bought it of my own volition because I LOVE her, but I *DO* think you should read her stuff... just do it...
She follows the phases of the moon as she explores darkness and it's cultural implications - mostly, how often we villainize darkness. Even spiritually, we say we found the light, or turned from darkness. This most recent chapter, where she explores blindess and life without light at all, and how darkness isn't what we really think it is... it's all got me thinking.
When you are born blind, you have no concept of what blindness is, or what darkness is. You have no way to understand that duality. Trees aren't seen by sight, but by the other senses. She says that seeing is superficial, but that it overpowers so many of our other senses; in darkness, though, we come alive. We see trees by their presence, we sense walls by their force, we identify people by their voice, and we feel the ground beneath us.
So why, so often, is spirituality compared to light? She says it's because the people who wrote our texts were people who could see. That is the duality they can use to describe the events that take place.
What if our biblical texts had been written by someone blind? What if it was not light and darkness, but love and apathy that we turned to and from? What if it was peace and calm that we turned to from hate and separation. What if we experienced more than the superficial "light" and got to the meat of the faith?
It makes me really want to spend time with my group exploring our other senses, and perhaps exploring the margins. I am not thinking to plan times where we more consciously not just serve those on the margins of society, but experience life that way. BBT went to an exhibit called "Dialogue in the Dark" where you experience the world as a blind person... really? How awesome would that be? To spend time actually in darkness trying to buy groceries?
What about spending time at the shelter?
What about being less of one of us and more of them? The early Christians were "them" and around the world, they are still the marginalized, but we rarely have that experience in America. Too often we don't realize that it is still dangerous to be a Christian in most of the world. We forget that we started "on the margins" and continue to live on the margins in a majority of the world. Christian acceptance is not a given, and we are told over and over again to cling to our faith when persecution comes... not if it comes.
What about learning to walk in the dark? What about learning about the presence of God without our superficial senses? What about going deeper?
I'm exploring darkness in different ways these days, trying to, as she puts it, learn to sit in it.... my favorite experiences of darkness were those when I was truly removed from the artificial lights of our world, our attempts to stave off darkness as long as possible... nights in India, on top of my mountain, closer to the stars than ever, seeing constellations from a different perspective and being able to reach out and touch them because the power was still out and there were no lights to interfere with their brilliance. Nights in a bach in Hari Hari New Zealand, with the generator off, a fire burning inside, but the light not permeating the darkness of the rain forest we found ourselves - seeing the southern cross and other foreign constellations that we miss in the northern hemisphere....
Rarely do we get to see the uninterrupted night sky in America. Even when I turn off all the lights in my house, street lights shine in...
And perhaps this is not a good thing. Perhaps we are missing the connection; perhaps we are favoring sight over our other senses... perhaps sight is not was allows to do anything we do, but actually, takes away from the fullness of our actions....
She mentions Opaque restaurants: restaurants where you eat in the dark and by doing so, you notice the food more, you notice the people more... She says perhaps we should have Opaque Church... I'm all for that idea. I want to do that. What is worship when we take away our sight? What is worship when we are using all of our other senses?
Perhaps that will be an experience I try to have soon.
Perhaps darkness is what we are missing in our world and in our church.
Perhaps we are too busy always trying to find the light that we forget the true Light. The Light that is much greater than the bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
Perhaps we have gone too far.
She follows the phases of the moon as she explores darkness and it's cultural implications - mostly, how often we villainize darkness. Even spiritually, we say we found the light, or turned from darkness. This most recent chapter, where she explores blindess and life without light at all, and how darkness isn't what we really think it is... it's all got me thinking.
When you are born blind, you have no concept of what blindness is, or what darkness is. You have no way to understand that duality. Trees aren't seen by sight, but by the other senses. She says that seeing is superficial, but that it overpowers so many of our other senses; in darkness, though, we come alive. We see trees by their presence, we sense walls by their force, we identify people by their voice, and we feel the ground beneath us.
So why, so often, is spirituality compared to light? She says it's because the people who wrote our texts were people who could see. That is the duality they can use to describe the events that take place.
What if our biblical texts had been written by someone blind? What if it was not light and darkness, but love and apathy that we turned to and from? What if it was peace and calm that we turned to from hate and separation. What if we experienced more than the superficial "light" and got to the meat of the faith?
It makes me really want to spend time with my group exploring our other senses, and perhaps exploring the margins. I am not thinking to plan times where we more consciously not just serve those on the margins of society, but experience life that way. BBT went to an exhibit called "Dialogue in the Dark" where you experience the world as a blind person... really? How awesome would that be? To spend time actually in darkness trying to buy groceries?
What about spending time at the shelter?
What about being less of one of us and more of them? The early Christians were "them" and around the world, they are still the marginalized, but we rarely have that experience in America. Too often we don't realize that it is still dangerous to be a Christian in most of the world. We forget that we started "on the margins" and continue to live on the margins in a majority of the world. Christian acceptance is not a given, and we are told over and over again to cling to our faith when persecution comes... not if it comes.
What about learning to walk in the dark? What about learning about the presence of God without our superficial senses? What about going deeper?
I'm exploring darkness in different ways these days, trying to, as she puts it, learn to sit in it.... my favorite experiences of darkness were those when I was truly removed from the artificial lights of our world, our attempts to stave off darkness as long as possible... nights in India, on top of my mountain, closer to the stars than ever, seeing constellations from a different perspective and being able to reach out and touch them because the power was still out and there were no lights to interfere with their brilliance. Nights in a bach in Hari Hari New Zealand, with the generator off, a fire burning inside, but the light not permeating the darkness of the rain forest we found ourselves - seeing the southern cross and other foreign constellations that we miss in the northern hemisphere....
Rarely do we get to see the uninterrupted night sky in America. Even when I turn off all the lights in my house, street lights shine in...
And perhaps this is not a good thing. Perhaps we are missing the connection; perhaps we are favoring sight over our other senses... perhaps sight is not was allows to do anything we do, but actually, takes away from the fullness of our actions....
She mentions Opaque restaurants: restaurants where you eat in the dark and by doing so, you notice the food more, you notice the people more... She says perhaps we should have Opaque Church... I'm all for that idea. I want to do that. What is worship when we take away our sight? What is worship when we are using all of our other senses?
Perhaps that will be an experience I try to have soon.
Perhaps darkness is what we are missing in our world and in our church.
Perhaps we are too busy always trying to find the light that we forget the true Light. The Light that is much greater than the bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
Perhaps we have gone too far.
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