darkness sheds light

We were lucky I guess because we just spent two nights in darkness after the huffing and puffing of Ike's anger.

I pray for those in Texas and other places who have suffered so much more devastation.Our little inconvenience of non-electric existence was a learning experience. Sitting in the dark, I realized how our artificial light hides the real darkness at night and blots out the brightness of the stars and the reality of night.

I've been helped by the writing of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung who talks about our Shadow Side. Each of us has that 'darkness' in us that we don't want to encounter or deal with. We're afraid of our Shadow Self. But wholeness comes only as we embrace this personal darkness without judgment. The 'shadow' or darkness that Jung writes about is not 'evil' or some sort of sinfulness that is anti-God. Rather, it is part and parcel of our humanness. It is the crack in the Liberty Bell. It is the shadow that proves the Sun is shining. It is our incompleteness that wrinkles our smooth, logical minds.

I forget who wrote this, but someone said, "It is better to be whole than to be good." To me that means it is more healthy to have an integrated self, a unified self, than to be a perfectionistic, over-scrupulous person. To be able to accept ourselves even though we are unacceptable is an experience of divine grace. My spiritual/psychological journey has brought me to the place where on my good days I can accept the fact that I will never accept myself fully, and that's okay. The human experience of Acceptance comes ultimately from God, whether we realize it or not.

I found the darkness boring. I am not a contemplative. Just sitting and praying bores me after a while. Pat and I did have more time to talk. It was sort of like camping. Total darkness sheds light on life.