Dark Side

I have been doing a lot of walking these past several months. It just so happened that during a conversation with a friend who expressed an interest in walking, we both decided to be walking partners. This friend lives out of state, but we have become walking partners. We wake up, get on our phones, and walk. During our walk, we talk about everything under the sun: life, work, politics, spirituality, soccer, football, food, kids, and the whole nine yards. It is therapeutic to hit the trail—I have come to enjoy it, and I look forward to waking up and walking.

Over the summer months, when the sun rises by 5:30 a.m., I would hit the trail. The timing didn’t really matter to me because the sun was up, there was light, and I could see. Since I have been on the trail several times, I have already mapped out the path that I walk each morning. I don’t stray from the path. I always walk the same path. With the sunlight, which lightens the trail, I can walk my path and see all those who are also walking, running, or riding bikes on it.

One morning, while it was still dark, I was about to hit the trail when I heard unusual screams. It wasn’t a scream of anguish, as if someone was in some physical pain; it was one of anger because it was filled with expletives. I could hear those screams coming from the woods.

Within that very moment, I realized that I couldn’t go on the same path that I had been walking. To walk that same path would mean confronting the danger of an angry person in the woods while it was still dark. I made a turn to walk on a different path, away from the screams.

That decision reinforced the fear of the dark side in each of us, and it would be foolish on my part to walk in the dark woods without knowing the kind of danger that awaited me. Changing my direction meant walking in an area where, although there was not enough light, there was also no immediate danger.

I wasn’t necessarily scared of the darkness; I feared the dark side of the stranger who was walking in the dark. This is because darkness itself cannot harm us; it is the one with a dark side who walks in the dark that can hurt you and me. 

There’s no doubt that we all love light. The presence of light assures us that, despite any darkness or our dark sides, there’s a powerful redeeming force that has the capacity to invite us and walk with us into its beaming light, so that we wouldn’t have to be afraid to walk in the dark because another person with a dark side is also walking in the dark and screaming.

The thought of having a dark side reminded me of a conversation I had with a very dear friend who wondered if there are spiritual forces of darkness that exact evil on humans. I responded that I do not doubt St. Paul when he says that “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

The reality is that it is human beings like you and me, those of us with dark sides, who give life to the evils of the world. Do I believe that there’s a dark caricature with two horns on its head holding a pitchfork? Absolutely not. But I believe that whatever evil there is, it is committed by human beings like you and me. Our struggle is with our fellow neighbors with their pitchforks out, ready to stab, betray, and denigrate. Our struggle is with our neighbors with dark sides.

We are presently dealing with a government shutdown. Federal workers have been furloughed. There’s a ton of anxiety among fellow citizens because many of these families who live paycheck to paycheck don’t know where their next meal is coming from. They don’t know how they are going to pay their bills. It is as if families were not struggling already. With your generous support of the discretionary fund, I regularly help some of these families, and so I am very much aware of the precarious situations they find themselves in. This shutdown is an added aggravation of an already porous economy that is tilted towards those who have more than enough means to survive.

There’s a story of the nail asking the hammer one day, "Why are you always hitting me?" The hammer replied, “I don’t hit you to hurt you, I do this to help you fulfill your purpose." "But it hurts so much," said the nail. "I know it hurts," said the hammer, "but without those blows, you would never go into the wood. You would never be useful. You would never hold anything together." The nail then asked, "Don’t you get tired of hitting me?" "Of course, I get tired," said the hammer. "But it is worth it because I know that through this you are serving an important purpose." The nail was quiet for a moment, then he said, "Thank you for pushing me even though it hurts. Thank you for not leaving me halfway."

If we are to fulfill our divine purpose, we should not be afraid to walk the trail in the dark, because someone who has a dark side—as I do—is also walking in the dark.

Each of us is a nail that a hammer must hit to go through some wood. That is how we can fulfill our God-given purposes. Being hit by the hammer is our struggle with the dark side. Novelist Martin Shaw writes something about the dark side in his book Courting the Twin Within.

The dark side often reminds us that we are not worth it and we are not fit for purpose. The dark side questions why we give to support God’s work, the dark side raises doubts in our minds about our sense of worth, the dark side questions any and all things that has to do with a faithful expression of our belief in God, the dark side creates the fear of the other in us, the dark side gives life to the dehumanization of others, the dark side reviles the sight of others being happy-it wants to see suffering, it perpetuates suffering and glories in the suffering of others because it delusionally believes that it benefits from it.

Carl Jung once said, “Modern man can’t see God because he doesn’t look low enough.” The tragedy is that we have misappropriated our understanding of God by creating a fictional God who brims with luxury, is devoid of suffering, distant, and high up above the clouds. We therefore have to look up beyond the skies to see this fictional God for regular handouts.

If you want to see God, don’t look up. Bend and look low. To bend and look low enough is to see your dark side and the God who redeems and transforms it.

To bend low enough to look is to see the God who invites us into His life and asks us not to fear, for He is always with us.

To bend and look low enough is to see the God who, despite our dark side, uses us to accomplish His divine purpose. Thanks be to God for not leaving us halfway.

Manny+