Dark Night of the Soul

People of the night bother me. Those who, maybe after a day’s work, re-dress and enter a world of darkness where evil hangs off the walls, and men and women seduce each other, and criminals step out into the street to rob, steal, kill, (currently most popular is shooting at cars on the Freeway) and disrupt whatever is high on their menus for that night. It’s the time when sex becomes a god and married folk escape from their vows and look for something that makes them feel good and important although they are nothing afterward but the same person they were at mid-day. 

Nighttime is when bats fly, and how many diseases have bats inaugurated whether in caves or out hanging on the trees. It’s the same thing. Darkness can be dangerous - even though the moon - which is female - is a bright white circle and stars scatter across the sky, and moons and suns pass by each other to darken the universe for a minute, and airplanes fill the skies because nighttime is the best time to get from one continent to another so clients wake up refreshed in the morning. 

Nighttime. Darkness.  Jesus said, according to John 3, “people love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. “

When I was of younger age (by far), I tested the night stuff. I was never a swinger and only went to rock concerts because I was able to sit back stage with staff members of the Coliseum: The Monkeys, Herman and the Hermits, Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf, and I even answered phones for The Beatles show. Those were the days. Things were safer then. But the older one gets, the more one knows that darkness is dangerous and the place to be is not out in the bars, and streets, and neighborhoods where anything can happen - and people can get away with whatever they want to do because no one can really see who they are or why they do what they do. I often wonder if there is darkness in heaven? Will there be day and night? Will anyone have to fear the darkness? Surely, when day is done, when the sun has been scorching all day long, when the day’s labor has been tedious and one needs to blow out in some way or reason, and dinner is on the table, or food needs to be cooked to be put on that table, normally there is darkness outside. 

I am blessed to have been raised in a home where the lights were off at 8 p.m. At 5 a.m., my father drank his glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and took off to work downtown, even though it could be dark at that hour with light arriving in a moment. My father was a routine man. You knew where he was at whatever time of day. By 3 in the afternoon he was on the tennis or handball court at the University Club. Exercise was the backbone of his health. Daytime was the time any of us could do our activities and habits, like work, shopping, exercising, lunching with friends, ministering to the needy, the prisoner, the sick. Church is mostly daytime. Sports… well, basketball, boxing and ice hockey are indoor sports, usually at night. But other sports are outside in daylight, or at least were in his day.  

Restaurants are open daytime, but it’s the night time when the bulk of clients arrive and depending on the neighborhood, food and drink can turn into a wild and violent thing when whiskey and beer and margaritas twist and turn into something rabid and violent. No one can see each other exactly, lights are dim, and there is darkness and shadow in most bars in town. Women with painted faces - those extended eyelashes and overkill rouge - become not who they really are, but maybe who they want to be or think they need to be to get attention and a little loving. and that act of tossing down spirits like whiskey and beer and drugs has no limit and this alters the reason and mood and intelligence of the drinker, either celebrating or bemoaning life and people.

In Jesus time there were no electronics, no night lights, no drugs. Probably wine. I doubt even fireworks existed then to light up the skies in some celebration. Fisherman fished in the night, as we know from the Bible. How did they move around, I guess they carried candles because there was no electricity nor flashlights? The moon was probably a big factor. Thank God mankind had fire.

For many there are dark nights for the soul. These days in Memphis, and depending on your neighborhood, you can hear gun shots rat-ta-tat-tat-tat in the wee hours, and you just pray no life has been lost. And then there are the trains. Engineers seems to love those whistles or horns and they make them heard at 3 or 4 in the morning - mainly to make sure any drunks or someone sleeping on a rail will get up and move. Sometimes cars are stuck on railroad tracks or just sitting there waiting to do a super gig and scare the train driver. That competes with the constant sirens of the police cars and ambulances and fire department all night long, trying to keep people safe or rescue people who are not safe. So, when I wake up in the wee hours, I immediately start my long prayer list, it stays in my head and heart whatever, and usually I will pray myself to sleep because there is nothing more soothing than The Lord’s Prayer, Hail Marys and praying for others. 
 

 ~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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