Day Twenty-Nine

We can't banish darkness, real or metaphorical, from our lives. When we try to do this within ourselves, in our relationships and in society as a whole, we can become awfully cruel.  The equation of darkness with depravity is a most damaging belief.

We need the dark to grow, to sleep and to teach us that everything takes a rest for awhile. The addiction to all things sunny and bright is surely that, an unhealthy attachment to an idealized world that few of us will ever inhabit. And even if we could live there in that imagined place, it would certainly be very lonely, because the minute others join us, we'll start to see shadows and want them gone.

This is a dark time of the year.  So may it be. As Carl Jung wrote, "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."  Whether we perceive darkness in our internal or external atmospheres, the goal isn't to banish it.

The images and experiences of brightness that bring comfort this time of the year aren't blinding flood-lights, they're the candles of the Menorah, the burning Yule Log, the lights held individually person by person that light up a Christmas Eve service.  Each of these symbols a reminder that we can become conscious in and with the dark.  We can remember what our friends The Friends say  (in a wonderful way to describe that which is of God in each of us)--"The Inner Light."

Gratitude can be this inner spark, the reminder of the light in us.  With this life-giving power, we can appreciatively illuminate our place and the place where others stand as well. As we prepare to bring this month-long gratitude practice to a close tomorrow,  what have you noticed in yourself in your practice this month?  How can you be grateful to yourself for your capacity for gratitude as expression of The Inner Light in you?


--Ken