The Dance Between Darkness and Light

Fr. Richard Rohr’s Summary
The Dance of Darkness and Light

Sunday 
It seems that all of us are trying to find ways to avoid the mystery of human life—that we are all a mixture of darkness and light—instead of learning how to carry it patiently through to resurrection, as Jesus did.  —Richard Rohr  

Monday 
Periods of seemingly fruitless darkness may in fact highlight all the ways we rob ourselves of wisdom by clinging to the light. Who grows by only looking on the bright side of things? 
—Richard Rohr 

Tuesday 
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.  —Joan Chittister 

Wednesday 
Darkness subverts the all-too-common inclination to determine (or overdetermine) reality to fit our own narrow understanding of things. It invites instead a way of seeing rooted in simplicity, humility, and awe.  —Douglas Christie 

Thursday 
Without darkness, I would not be! I entered the world from the nurturing darkness of the womb and relied upon a dark and resourceful family, community, and cosmos for my well-being. We come from the darkness and return to it.  —Barbara Holmes 

Friday 
Jesus is more of a “lunar” teacher, patient with darkness and slow growth. He seems to be willing to live with not-knowing, surely representing the cosmic patience and certain freedom of God. 
—Richard Rohr  



Week Twenty-Nine Practice
Trees Dance with Darkness and Light

While I am looking for something large, bright, and unmistakably holy, God slips something small, dark, and apparently negligible in my pocket. 
—Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark 

Beth Norcross and Leah Rampy from the Center for Spirituality in Nature seek to discover the spiritual wisdom of trees.  
The words light and dark may evoke contradictory feelings for many of us. We often speak of light as good, welcoming, and what we aspire to or reach for, while darkness is held in the negative, a condition to be overcome.

At other times, we equate darkness with much needed rest, a fallow time, or an inward journey, as we note that creativity and life evolve out of darkness. Or perhaps we hold light and dark simply as different ways of seeing, without judgment or negativity. For hundreds of thousands of years before humans walked this Earth, trees grew, thrived, and died in a dance with day and night, summer and winter. Trees hold spiritual wisdom for us as we consider the possibilities held within light and dark….  

As we observe the patterns of trees, we might consider how to stretch toward the light. Our practice probably won’t look exactly like that of a tree, physically shaping ourselves to reach toward the sun. It might generate a similar feeling, however, as we listen for the places within us that are longing for more light and adapt our spiritual practices to respond to that need….  

To embrace the practice of trees, we might notice the places within us where the light seldom shines. We may long to look away from our shadows, to ignore the ways we feel least connected to the holy. Yet the trees would tell us that those are the very places to which we must attend, lovingly stretching into the pain, misunderstanding, grief, or confusion.

The trees remind us that if we refrain from growing in those difficult, shadowy places, our journey toward the light will be constrained.