There is a light in us that only darkness itself can illuminate. It is the glowing calm that comes over us when we finally surrender to the ultimate truth of creation: that there is a God and we are not it. Whatever we had assumed to be an immutable dimension of the human enterprise is not. In fact, it is gone and there is nothing we can do to bring it back. Then the clarity of it all is startling. Life is not about us; we are about the project of finding Life. At that moment, spiritual vision illuminates all the rest of life. And it is that light that shines in the darkness.

Only the experience of our own darkness gives us the light we need to be of help to others whose journey into the dark spots of life is only just beginning. It’s then that our own taste of darkness qualifies us to be an illuminating part of the human expedition. Without that, we are only words, only false witnesses to the truth of what it means to be pressed to the ground and rise again.

Darkness is a mentor of what it means to carry the light we ourselves have brought to blaze into the unknown parts of life so that others may also see and take hope. “Rabbi,” the disciples begged of their dying master, “how can we possibly go on when you are gone?” And the rabbi answered them, “It is like this: Two men went into the forest together but only one carried the light. When they parted there, the one with the light went on ahead while the other floundered in the darkness.” The disciples insisted, “Yes, that is how it is and that is why we are so frightened to be without you.” The old man fixed them a long, strong stare and said, “Exactly. That is why you must each carry your own light within you.”

—from Between the Dark and the Daylight, by Joan Chittister (Image)