The Darkest Dark

 

 

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.  For darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.  Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.                                                    ~Isaiah 60:1-3

 

 

For a kid who grows up on the farm there's a unique sense of time that evolves from everyday life--and it's different from time anywhere else in the world.  Workdays aren't defined by the clock, and hardly by the sun.  They're defined by the work that needs to be done. And the seasons roll on.

 

My favorite season is autumn.  Back in the Midwest, in late October the air changes.  It's cooler.  And usually by Halloween, you can see your breath suspended in the air as you laugh and talk with friends on the way home from school.  The maples and oaks paint the countryside with the most breathtaking crimsons and golds you ever saw.  And you can layer yourself with bright woolen plaids.  And everyone walks a little faster.

 

Life on the farm is all about minding the seasons and having patience.  It's about planting seed in the spring and waiting for the rain--and if too much or too little rain comes, sometimes planting again and waiting again.  Cultivating crops in the summer and waiting.  Standing by, knowing that the crops will tell us when it's time to harvest them.  And waiting through the fall rains till the fields are dry enough to get in.  Then sometimes having to wait till they're frozen, if the ground never dries.

 

Farming is about plowing the soil to turn it over, just before the first hard freeze.  And waiting.  All winter.  Waiting and knowing that in the deep, frozen darkness below the surface of that soil, the miracle of rest is happening. 

 

The season of our life on this planet is changing.  We no longer have the luxury of comparing our separated, segregated selves, gathering proof that we are right and true and better or best of all.  We can no longer afford to offer up the welfare of earth in exchange for quick profit.  In this season of our life, those with power must choose not to use it for dominance if we wish to survive.

 

What is the darkest dark you've ever seen?  For me the darkest dark in all the world is in the cellar.  At home when I was growing up the cellar was separate from the house.  It was igloo shaped, built of bricks, with stairs leading down from the outdoors to a cement floor.  It was covered with dirt and thick grass growing in that dirt.  On the outside the cellar made a wonderful hill for rolling down and for playing "king on the mountain".  But the really awesome part was on the inside.  IT WAS DARK.

 

I can remember Mother saying, "Take this pan, Linda, and go to the cellar and get five potatoes for dinner."  It took both hands to lift the cellar door, and I'd let it drop to the ground, on the other side of the hinges, with a bang.  It seemed to take an hour to walk down those steps.  I took them slowly so that my eyes could adjust to the dark as I went.  The goal was to be able to see in the dark by the time I got there, so I could identify where the goblins were, and get away from them.  (As I got older and more sophisticated, I convinced myself that I was just watching for crickets.)  The air in the cellar was always cold & I'd get a chill.

 

Squinting in the dark I'd find the potato crates and gasp in horror.  There in the secret dark an awful thing had happened.  Every eye of every potato had grown a ghostly tendril and they were all reaching for me like hungry fingers.  Another chill.  This time not from the cold.  Then I'd get over my fright and pick up the five biggest ones by their fingers and run up the stairs to safety.

 

Years later I was amazed to hear my daughters describe the source of their fears.  My ominous potato sprouts paled to their deep pessimism grounded in our ability to destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons.  They and their friends believed they would not live to adulthood.  Others believed then, and do now, that our suicide will not be so abrupt, but rather that we will continue to kill ourselves slowly by destroying the planet we so glibly call home.

 

I remember what a refuge the cellar was at other times.  Still creepy, but a refuge.  Mother would say, "come on, kids.  We need to go to the cellar."  And we knew not to question.  My grandparent's home had vanished in a tornado, and we grew up on stories of chickens found miles away, some still alive but without any feathers, and some of their feathers driven into fenceposts in the place where the chickens had been picked up.

 

My brother, Norman, and I would enter that deep dungeon of a cellar and sit side by side on the bench where the potato crates were, his feet dangling, only my toes resting on the floor because I was trying to touch as little of the dark, damp surface as possible.  On the shelf beside the canned goods, near the door, was an old Kerr canning jar, the kind with the galvanized metal lid with a white porcelain lining.  And inside that jar, where it was dry, were some wooden matches and the stump of a candle.

 

When the door was pulled shut it was as dark in that cellar as a tomb.  And it smelled like wet dirt and decaying potatoes.  And I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.  And I wouldn't have known Norman was there if he hadn't been chattering all the while, "Winda, what's gonna happen next?"

 

What is the darkest dark you've ever experienced?  Perhaps when you stood alone in the face of death.  Or when you struggled to breathe in a spiritual vacuum because someone you loved had died.  It may have been in that unbelievably long stretch of time when you were looking for a job.  Maybe it was a financial disaster that took you to the threshold of bankruptcy.  Or perhaps in divorce when you realized that there was no going back, and nothing to do but inch your way through the pain and the loneliness.  And no one could do it for you.  And no one could do it with you.  Remember the darkness when the question was throbbing and there seemed to be no answer and your own voice echoed back at you, "What's gonna happen next?"

 

As difficult and even frightening as the darkness may be, it's not entirely a bad thing.  In fact, the cellar was mysteriously pregnant with promise.  Something marvelous had been happening all winter long in that cellar, with the door closed and no light coming in.  Next year's potato crop was happening.  When the long, icy winter was finally over and the garden was thawed enough to work the ground, we would turn it over once again.  And everything that had been sleeping in that deep, frozen darkness began to awaken. 

 

Mid-March my parents would bring up the potato crates, now full of the most pitiful looking potatoes you ever saw... shriveled and wrinkled like old farmers.  You couldn't possibly peel one for eating.  And who would want to?  Every one of them was covered with ghostly white tendrils, now grown so long that the potatoes seemed to be holding onto each other for dear life; as if they knew what was about to happen.  Mother and Daddy would cut those potatoes up into as many pieces as there were sprouts, leaving enough of the meat of the potato to feed the new plant, and they would stick those ugly things in the ground… and cover them with newly awakened dirt… and wait.  Then, about the time the first peas were ready, the first potatoes joined them on our table.  What a feast!

 

In Dr. Stephen Kim's class, "Christian Identity and Mission in the Global Village", we've been struggling with how Christians can engage with people of all faiths in a society no longer defined by international boundaries, the languages we speak or the religions we practice, but by the planet we share.  It's a hard question.  We've been looking for a common ground where all faiths in a diverse world can meet.  I wonder if we'll ever find it.  Sometimes I think our common ground is to be found in the fact that we all teeter together on the brink of disaster.  In this season that we Christians call Advent, perhaps there is a hint of another promise. 

 

Finally respecting the power we have to destroy each other and therefore ourselves--aching from the torn places in our relationships between families, friends, nations--all of groaning humanity hovers in the deep, frozen darkness, waiting together in hope.  Perhaps this is the commonality we've been struggling to define--this hope.  Perhaps it is our hope that keeps us here, waiting in the dark, together.

 

I remember hearing the metal against the glass as the lid came off of that Kerr canning jar. So that meant Mother was there with us in the dark.  But where was Daddy?  Still out in the storm?  Then I heard the sputtering of the phosphorous on the match head as it struck the brick wall of the cellar.  I remember the unbelievable radiance of the blue-white flame that pierced our darkness as Mother lit the candle.  And how good it was to see Daddy standing there beside her in his overalls... safe.

 

It was only because of our profound and utter darkness that a simple candle was able to produce such brilliance.  And it was only because I couldn't see at all that what my eyes finally beheld by candlelight was so delicious.

 

We pray thee, God, for the coming of a light to dispel our darkness.  Amen.

 

 

© Rev. Linda Miller, December 1, 1999. 

Delivered in Claremont School of Theology Chapel