Darkness is not dark

Seeing and not seeing. It's often a topic here on Monastic Ponderings. We become conscious because we want to see. We practice compassion so that our hearts will respond better and know more. We meditate so that we are aware. It all implies a willingness to journey. But there is another aspect to our journey: a willingness to accept what that journey brings us.

It happens that sometimes I fail to see, not because I am spiritually blind, but because I don't like what I find. The product is not what I expected, I had hoped for more, or less, or better. I find myself in disbelief that after all I've done, this is the result? And so my journey has brought me to a point I do not want to be, with a decision I do not want to make, and a revelation I do not like. The resistance can be ever so slight, but resistance it is.

It just goes to show that no one ever "arrives" at a place where struggle ceases, despite rhetoric to the contrary. The journey will always have its challenges, and we will always have choices. Paul complained about his own battles, and the reply he received was "My grace is sufficient for you."(2 Cor. 12:9)

Perhaps this is the meaning of psalm 139:12 Darkness is not dark for you, and night will be light as the day. What I worry about is really of little importance, because I am prone to get it wrong. Knowing this should help. For revelation can be having our expectations thwarted so that what we think is replaced by what is. It's worth the thought. And isn't that what the journey is about anyway?