“Faith is a way of waiting—never quite knowing, never quite hearing or seeing, because in the darkness we are all but a little lost. There is doubt hard on the heels of every belief, fear hard on the heels of every hope, and many holy things lie in ruins because the world has ruined them and we have ruined them. But faith waits even so, delivered at least from that final despair which gives up waiting altogether because it sees nothing left worth waiting for.”
– Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark

NOTE: I wrote what follows BEFORE I came across this quote this morning. God’s timing is…God’s timing. Think I found my next book to read.

I awoke this morning at 3:00am. The why one wakes up in the middle of the night (or the middle of the morning) isn’t always important. Sometimes it’s what one does AFTER the wakeup call that carries weight and substance.

So, I looked out the window. I mean, how often am I up and 3:00am? I wanted to see what was happening out in the world. And what I saw were stars sprinkled in the darkness. And oddly, strangely and almost immediately, I felt free. I didn’t reach to turn on a light, but soaked in and contemplated the darkness. It was weird to think about the darkness as this thing that frees one. It seems wrong to write about the darkness as freedom for one who calls himself a child of God. God of light. And, yet, in the darkness this morning, alone with just the stars, I felt freedom.

In the darkness there are no boundaries, only possibilities. No visual boundaries telling me where to stop, or directing my movement. Aside from the stars there are no signs or queues telling me what do to (assuming the dark is accompanied by silence). All things are possible. Hope springs eternal. So, in the darkness of this morning I just…was. And it was sort of cool. The nothingness. Until I began to fill in the blanks.

It’s like my mind doesn’t like the nothingness. The not knowing. The infinite possibilities. Probably why the concept of meditating seems foreign to me. Slowly my darkness began to be filled with ideas. And as soon as I did that the stars began to fade. Freedom, faded. Ug. In my mind those two things seem to fight a battle where neither wins. My freedom, my darkness began to be replaced by possibilities and options whose boundaries are defined by what I know. Definitions began to take shape where there once was undefined possibility. With my eyes wide open I felt loss. I know, weird. Not sure words capture it right.

Now, as I look out the window, I can see the sky growing slowly brighter. The stars no longer shine as they did hours ago. Somewhere out there the moon is still visible, I am sure. But my mind has shifted from what could be to what needs to be. The darkness has been replaced by my list of things to do.

Today, with my eyes wide open now, may I boldly seek out God and observe His glory. The Light of the World.