Even though I am surrounded by deep darkness

 

Psalm 23:4 says, 

Even though I am surrounded by deep darkness, 

I fear no danger, for you are with me. 

Your rod and your staff, they give me courage. 

About this time last year, my family moved from a high rise in Philadelphia, to the quiet little village of Frazer.  In Philadelphia, we lived at the intersection of two busy streets, so we always heard firetrucks, ambulance and police cars whizzing by.  In the spring and summer, we could hear the rumble of loud music played by cars below, or the cheers of baseball and soccer games played at the school across the street.  The church down the street rang their bell every hour on the hour. On the 4th of July, we would have a panoramic view of fireworks displays going on around the region.  

My 11th floor view was bright–everything from the Philadelphia skyline to the street lights to the stream of planes landing at the airport in the distance lit up the night.  Darkness was practically non existent there.  

And I loved it.  I’m not afraid of the dark, but I did grow accustomed to the city lights and the city sounds to lull me to sleep.  

And here, in Frazer, there is barely any sounds or light, especially now with folks mostly staying home.  The only sounds I hear are the birds at the bird feeder, the geese warning me away from their nest, and the dog barking at squirrels or the rare passer by.  The only light I see from my front porch at night is the illuminated cross on the church.  

And the stars.  There are so many stars out.  We didn’t see them 25 miles East in Philadelphia.  But here, I could lay on the church lawn and point out constellations and never get tired of it.  

But the dark and the quiet out here still freaks me out a little bit.  How do I sleep with the absence of light and sound?  

Our friends recently gave us two large wind chimes which we’ve hung outside our bedroom window.  Their clanging helps us to sleep at night. Because otherwise there would be no sound at all.

There’s been something off putting about all the darkness and silence that surrounds where we live now.  Where some of you might travel to Philadelphia and lock your car doors for fear of strangers, I don’t feel that–twenty five years of city living will do that, I guess.  But in the darkness here, I want to lock down the house, lock the car doors, pull tight the curtains. There’s something scary about not knowing what’s out there, lurking in the dark.  And what we don’t know is fraught with possibilities. What we don’t know finds fertile soil in the darkness of our imaginations.  

And the darkness that I’m experiencing here in Frazer is still not at all dark, compared to the time of the psalmist.  The psalmist writes, ”even though I am surrounded by deep darkness, I fear no danger, for you are with me.” The psalmist is someone who knows deep darkness.  There’s no electricity for the psalmist, no street lights, no flashlights or phone lights to keep the path illuminated. This is the deep darkness of no flame or torch, no bright moon.  This is the deep darkness of an unlit canyon path in the middle of the night.  

And the Psalmist is talking about more than just the darkness of our physical surroundings.  They are also addressing those dark nights of the soul, the most difficult times we experience in life, where we can’t see the path ahead, where things are so bad that we don’t even know what our options are.  

And there, surrounded by deep darkness, the psalmist does not fear.  They fear neither danger or evil, because God is with them.  

Notice here that the writer doesn’t say, “Even though I’m surrounded by deep darkness, I’m trying really hard not to fear.” or “I’m practicing not fearing.”  No, this psalmist has had enough practice in this space of deep darkness, they have been here for a long time. And they have learned from experience that there’s no point in fearing. Fear is wasted energy.

In the light, we see what’s out there.  We see what there is to fear, and what we need to worry about.  In the light, all is exposed. But, in the darkness, we don’t know what there is to fear, and our minds run wild with ideas.  

Here’s the other thing about the light–in the light, we have a sense of independence.  We don’t need anyone else, because we have this false sense of control over all that we see.  We know the danger, because we see it. And most days, we do not give our thoughts over to the dangers we do not see.

But in the darkness, friends, we realize just how little control we actually have over our surroundings.  We need a guide, someone we can really trust. We need someone to show us the way.  

Barbara Brown Taylor wrote a book a few years ago called, “Learning to walk in the dark.”  In it, she practices walking in the dark around her farm property in Georgia. And she takes up spelunking, or hiking in caves.  On one particular spelunking adventure, she went deep into a cave, and the guide instructed her to turn off her head lamp. She didn’t want to do it–that was taking this darkness thing a little too far.  But, she realized just how much she depended on that light to get her through that cave. But she reluctantly followed the guide’s instructions.  

And after a few terrifying moments of darkness, her eyes began to adjust, and she learned how to move through the darkness using other instincts.  She listened to the ways the sound bounced off the rocks, observing the difference between the sound in small and larger spaces. She listened for her friends on the journey.  She began to let go of her fear and rely on her guide to get her through the darkness. And in that deep dark cave, she moved from fear of the dark, to a comfort in the darkness.  

Even though I walk through deep darkness, I will fear no danger, for you are with me.  Your rod and staff, they give me courage. 

This is the change of instinct the Psalmist is writing about.  To move from reliance on ourselves and what we can see, to relying on God to walk us through the darkness, without fear.  

And in that darkness, we know that God, the good shepherd, has a rod to keep predators away, and a staff to keep us on the path.  And what a comfort that is, to know that God is walking with us, guiding us on the path, even when all is utter darkness.  

Last night, after a late night zoom meeting at the church, I walked in the dark from the church to the parsonage.  This walk usually makes me a little nervous, because in the past I have encountered hissing deer hiding behind bushes, or a fox running across the driveway. I also fell off the path last winter while carrying a plate full of cookies in the dark, on my way to the Christmas program.  That was a mess–for the cookies, for my plate, and for my skinned knee. And that fall made me a little scared to walk that path again at night. But, last night the dark path was much easier. I had been practicing not being afraid, I had been practicing using my other senses to get me home.  

I almost pulled out the flashlight on my phone, but I thought, “let me see if I can do this.”  And as I walked that short, dark path, I had to chuckle. Once I looked up from the path, I saw the lights from Route 30, the illumination of local businesses in the distance. I realized that if I’d just looked up, if I had let go of my fear, if I just trusted the path, I would have all I needed in front of me.  

We are living in a time right now where the path is unlit.  Last week, we didn’t know what this week would look like. And, friends, guess what? We made it through.  God showed up for us in all sorts of ways, as always. And we don’t know what next week will look like, but we know one thing I know for certain is that God will be here here, walking with us.  

Thanks be to God for walking with us. May we walk through our lives, trusting in the rod and staff of God to guide and protect us, and knowing that God is always with us.  Whatever may come, and even though we are afraid, God is here with us. AMEN.