Up until last summer, I never understood the Bible's hatred for darkness. Every second passage seemed to be praising God for giving us light, singing songs of hope for morning and proclaiming daytime to be better than night. Why? I thought. I like nighttime. I love to hide in the shadows and wonder what unseen things might be hiding there with me. So what's the deal with these Bible people obsessing over having oil in their lamps?
I spent the month of August last year in the Leader in Training program at a summer camp run by my synod. It was a month full of tests, games and expecting the unexpected. One of the challenges was to spend a night in the woods in shelters we built ourselves. Awesome, I thought. This is my kind of thing.
My partner and I explored the woods around camp and chose a spot where neither of us had been before. We built our fire pit and our shelter and then tramped back to join the rest of the group for supper. Later that night we prepared the things we needed: bedding, food, first aid kit, matches. No, I did not forget to include a flashlight in that list. My partner and I decided to prove how hard core we were and go without one. After all, I was expecting a bit of lingering light to find our shelter and start our fire and then we'd be all set.
It was pitch dark.
OK, I thought, I can deal with this. I remember the route; all we have to do is to feel the edge of the cliff and hug it all the way to our shelter. Good old Canadian Shield; it's so nice for creating landmarks! It's also very nice for creating small cliffs to fall down. Twice. Not wanting my friend to plunge down the rocks as well, I told her to stay with the food while I scouted out the area. I was pretty sure I could find our site. I had fallen down the part that was supposed to be to my right … now go through the blackberries … there should be a stand of maples here …. There should be. It was at this point that I started to gain some respect for the light-obsessors. The ironic thing? I was exactly where I thought I was; only I couldn't see anything. I was standing a few feet from our shelter when I called to say it was unsafe and I was going back to camp to get a flashlight.
Well, we got to our fire pit unscathed in the end and I pulled out our three matches. I struck one. It broke. I struck another. It broke. I took the last one. Even then, it didn't occur to me to pray; I was thinking, morning will come, eventually. I struck the match. It broke.
It wasn't the end of the world. We ate our marshmallows cold and then, quickly, because even our newly acquired flashlight had started dimming, stuffed our sleeping bags into our tiny shelter, then crawled in after them. We lay awake talking for two hours before we fell asleep and I remember feeling profound thankfulness that we didn't have to do anything else but wait for morning … and light.
I still love the darkness, but I know now how different things are when you don't have the option of flicking on a switch. It took two cliffs and a moonless night to teach me, but I think I finally understand the lesson in this: In case of darkness, carry a light with you at all times. Either that or don't show off by leaving your flashlight behind when you're camping near a cliff. It's one of the two, I'm sure of it.
