"It's not about being saints or sinners or good or bad, Fancy. It's about being both. You know? About being complete." Slice of Cherry, Dia Reeves
We were born out of darkness, with a light inside of us just waiting to burst forth into the night. Our eager souls were sure they could escape their fate and run on a cloud of dreams and glory until the very end. And so we avoided our shadows, despite the fact that they crept silently behind us for as long as we could remember.
We divided our world into categories--good and bad, saints and sinners, light and dark. We did this to make sense of things, to help our minds justify what our hearts were screaming to set right. It made us feel better, knowing what we could and could not be in a world so tightly wound in grey. I think our colors faded because of this, the ashen aspects of our days settling lazily on our bones, despite what we did to dust them off. We wanted to appear perfect and bright, almost as much as we wanted everyone else to.
I think somewhere we forgot that even the brightest star cannot exist without the darkness of night.
Our quest for light strained our capacity to make it. All the fragments that frayed my life, all the shattered glass-- it buried me. It buried me because I could not exist in a place that threatened my sense of control, in a place that was not bound up in rules and regulations, stipulations for goodness that I could strive into with all my might.
And so in my reckless fight against the night, I inevitably lost all the light I had ever tried to hold. I watched it spinning out further and further until it was swallowed up by the darkness--not the darkness that was natural to my existence, but the darkness that was wrapped up in avoidance and regret, shame and vulnerability.
I let the darkness define me, instead of finding a way to define the dark--I let my light go out.
This world will never exist without darkness, but we are mistaken if we think that we must exist without it. Even in darkness the light gives ways to all that our souls were created to follow, it allows for illumination and healing and joy, it lets us see all that is beautiful in this world.
We must not avoid the darkness for fear of the night. We must walk boldly forth, calm our nerves, quiet the voice that says, "this must not be" because in truth, it already is.
Often, our best qualities, our brightest lights, are also our darkest companions. The magic within us that allows us to breathe and create and connect can also be our greatest downfall. And yet, we must use all of ourselves in the battle, we must acknowledge the darkness in an effort to grab onto light.
And when you really think about it, we need a bit of the darkness within to face the darkness without. We cannot extinguish what we do not understand, and when we do, we must trust that our light is already there. We must trust because one cannot exist without the other. Where there is dark, there will always be the capacity for light.
In the beginning, God created the light, and saw that it was good. From the very start, he imagined a world where we would never be without light--without hope. And while he has promised to bring us into a land where tears and sorrow are known no more, he stands with us in the dark. He is there, even when we feel we cannot bare to face one more night. Even when we feel our light is fading, when we feel we cannot go on.
We have the capacity for dark and light--but this does not make us saints or sinners. It makes us stars, shining so bright in a universe of darkness that illuminates all the hope there is and ever is to be.
Do not be afraid of the darkness--of your darkness--let it only point you to the light of the heavens that will never, ever go out.
No comments:
Post a Comment