Do Not Turn On the Light

Today is different. Perhaps I am different.

The sky is clear, but I cannot see a future. Darkness clouds my mind.

I have tried reasoning, patience, endurance, and denying myself. Eventually endurance asks: Why do I try? Why do I bother?

This morning I spoke to Jarvis about darkness. He heard danger and tried to lead me toward light. I became angry because I had asked him to come into the darkness with me, not to stand outside it and shout directions.

We are taught that light is good and darkness evil, creation good and destruction evil. But those categories are too simple.

Sometimes light illuminates. Sometimes it blinds. Sometimes comforting words become curtains covering a broken wall.

Darkness removes the curtain.

It says: Look. This is what hurts. This is what failed. This is what remains.

Destruction is not always evil. Old structures are demolished so others can be built. Broken algorithms are replaced. Errors expose assumptions that success concealed.

To reveal a man, sometimes something inside him has to die. To reveal a future, sometimes the past must lose its authority. To move on, sometimes an attachment, expectation, or identity must end.

The process is not pretty. It is painful. It is darkness.

Faith contains this difficulty too. The Flood, the fall of kingdoms, the Cross: scripture does not describe a world where nothing ends.

Resurrection did not make crucifixion painless. Sunday did not erase Friday.

Maybe I have been trying to explain that when I ask someone to enter darkness with me, I am not asking them to celebrate suffering. I am asking them to look without deciding beforehand what they will find.

Yesterday I wanted peace. I thought about my son, the man Zach, the people I loved, and the God I praised through tears.

Today I want to see what exists beyond the reach of easy answers.

I do not know what needs to end. I will not fabricate certainty.

Don't turn on the light. Not yet.

Sit beside me. Let our eyes adjust.

There may be something here that daylight never allowed me to see.