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.
(New Revised Standard Version, vv 11, 12)
This psalm was one identified on the first Dark Holy Ground course in Cleveland County during the 1980s. Here long term unemployed and people in employment met to contemplate their experiences. A big revelation was when they found the writers of the psalms were experiencing the same as unemployed people on Cleveland's housing estates. In this psalm, one of their favourites, they observed the psalmist is saying it is still night!
It is the dark places where creativity happens. Why do we have negative associations for darkness? The seed germinates in the dark. The embryo develops in the dark. Our hearts beat without any light at all. Spiritually, dark places can lead us to encounters with God. Sometimes we are able to say our darkest times are the best things that happen to us. They are no less dark for that.
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