Birth in the Dark of Night
"The supreme purpose of God is birth" Meister Eckhart 13 cent.
To Know the Dark
by Wendell Berry
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
Among the darkest places in North America is the little-known Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in central Colorado. My wife and I spent two nights camping there last summer. Besides its steep canyons, it is also one of the darkest places, thus ideal for stargazing. We awoke on the second night around 2 a.m. and lay on our backs watching a dramatic display of the Perseid meteor shower amid the backdrop of the Milky Way Galaxy. Because it was so dark, we could see the light in surprising ways. This poem from Wendell Berry featured prominently on a park sign at the visitor center.
We are in the darkest time of year here in the northern hemisphere. The sun is now setting around 4:20 p.m at my home in Rhode Island. It’s not an accident that Christmas, the time the light came into the world, is situated on December 25, just three days after the winter solstice with its long night. The date also follows nine months after March 25, which is the date of the annunciation by the angel Gabriel to Mary. You’ll note how that March date also corresponds with astronomical movement as it follows the spring equinox.
The early Christian church established these dates in the 4th century to merge the Christian calendar with the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian religions. For example, the ancient Persian sun-god Mithras was born or reborn each year around the Winter Solstice following a long Saturnalia festival. The Romans later merged this mythology with Sol Invictus, their Sun festival. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 330's CE, early church leaders merged the many traditions actively practiced with the story of Christ. Thus, the birth of the Son of God replaced the sun god's birth. This all took place some 300 years after the events written down in Luke & Matthew’s gospels.
Sometimes, people read the above description and view it as discrediting the Christmas story. That's not my intent here. Instead, I find all this history tremendously validating of the story. I say that because I read the scriptures as inspired and metaphorical truths instead of literal truths. I believe we can embrace the history of an event while mining it for deeper truths. Religious scholar Karen Armstrong summarizes these two ways of reading sacred texts as Mythos and Logos.
Logos (“reason”) was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled people to function effectively in the world. It had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. People have always needed logos to make an efficient weapon, organize their societies, or plan an expedition….. In popular parlance, a “myth” is something that is not true. But in the past, myth was not self-indulgent fantasy; rather, like logos, it helped people to live effectively in our confusing world, though in a different way. Mythos(Imagination) may have told stories about the gods, but they were really focused on the more elusive, puzzling, and tragic aspects of the human predicament that lay outside the remit of logos. Myth has been called a primitive form of psychology. When a myth described heroes threading their way through labyrinths, descending into the underworld, or fighting monsters, these were not understood as primarily factual stories. They were designed to help people negotiate the obscure regions of the psyche. (Karen Armstrong, The Case for God p xi)
I'm reading the Christmas story and this season of Advent as something true in the realm of mythos, as originally understood. For me, there is profound meaning in the stories of the nativity and the season of Advent. Clearly, there is some historical basis for the birth of this divine child, but we just don’t know with precision – even the Gospels have conflicting accounts. I’m not relying on the historicity to see the power of the symbolism and meaning of the Christ born in a stable, with visits from shepherds and the stars aligning to point the way for Magi from the East. Just pause and take in all that is here: eternal and temporal, divine amongst manure, astronomy, and gastronomy, visitors from important places coming to backwater villages. The imagery, symbolism, and paradox are just too rich to be ignored.
Both Freud's and Jung's gift to modern people is a new way of embracing mythos. Understanding our human need for narrative and meaning, we can now read the sacred texts of long ago and understand their inner depth.
These days of increasing darkness are matched with hope for light. The season of Advent is a paradox of darkness and light symbolism. Advent darkness stirs up fears, a desire for freedom, and all that something new may bring. In this time, we are representing something that goes on in each of our souls. Darkness, as I experienced on that night last August, is frightening. When the evening came, and I walked around that campground known to have wild animals, including bears and other predators, I was keenly aware of what ancient people experienced in the night. Fear becomes very real. There is a yearning for the safety and security of others, of something to illuminate the darkness. If I can see, then I have a greater degree of confidence. I reached for a flashlight. Ancient people knew the darkness, perhaps better than we.
But late modern people like ourselves know darkness as well. Who among us has not experienced a dark night of the soul? A time when our path into the future became unclear following a loss of employment, the breakup of a relationship, or the death of a loved one. We seem to wander around aimlessly in our own darkness. We are seeking some light, some companionship, and some wisdom to move into the future. Indeed we hope for something new to come along. Deep down, we hope for a new birth.
This brings us to the birth of the divine child as an incarnation of hope. The narratives in scripture describe different stories of a child born of mysterious circumstances in ordinary locations. We have stars and wisdom figures in Matthew; angels, sheepherders, and a bed of hay in Luke. The divine and the sublime come together.
The Christ-child captures the wholeness we desire to be born, not just 2,000 years ago, but again and again in each of us and our world. The many titles ascribed to Jesus capture the different yearnings of humanity - Prince of Peace, Emmanuel (God with us), Light of the World. This powerful and instinctual drive toward hope focuses our attention on the divine Christ child. As CG Jung pointed out: “One of the essential features of the child motif is its futurity. The child is potential future.” (CW vol 9i, p. 164)
Regardless of your formal religious identification, be it Lutheran, Jewish, agnostic, or none, we all share a common longing for hope. It strikes me hope may be a unifying theme of humanity.
Hope for Peace
Hope for Reconciliation
Hope for Companionship
Hope for Justice
Hope for Meaning
Hope and birth go together.
The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart writes: “The supreme purpose of God is birth. God will not be content until God’s Son is born in us. Neither will the soul be content until the Son is born in it.” For Eckhart, this eternal birth is always beginning anew as God comes to us in our inner “stable.”
What do you hope will be born in you this year?
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