Light

Meditation in a Toolshed by CS Lewis

I was standing today in the dark toolshed. the sun was shining outside & through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place.  Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes.  Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, & (above all) no beam.  Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside & beyond that, ninety-odd million miles away, the sun.  Looking along the beam, & looking at the beam are very different experiences.

I'm working on some art work these days all themed around light.

Why?

Because I am so afraid of the dark.

Not in the way one is afraid of the dark as a child & not in the way one is afraid of the dark after watching Paranormal Activity (ew).

It was only this past winter that this fear awakened in me.

Came literally out of no where.

I couldn't be home alone. I couldn't handle the night. I dreaded every day because it was cold & gray.

Something terrible happened inside me & I went about fixing it the absolute worst way.

Instead of running towards the light, I settled in darkness.

I embraced it reluctantly thinking I would eventually find my way out.

Things only got darker. 

Bad decision followed by bad decision led me farther away from the light to a place where anxiety & depression found me.

I didn't know how to shake it.

I felt so stuck.

The light was just a pinhole.

But winter ended & as always, summer came.

And somehow, with summer, the light found its way back to me.

I thawed out. Mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

The light was warm & I was me again.

I can't really explain why it all happened.

Had you seen me or interacted with me you probably wouldn't have known I was in one of the darkest times of my life.

I don't know where it came from.

But I do know I am never going back.

I will not stand in the dark toolshed gazing enviously at the light.

I will not be scared of it, I will not tiptoe around it, I will not ignore it or reject it.

I will stand in it completely.

I will let it consume me.

I will stare directly towards its' source & I will forget about the darkness.

Winter will find me this year.

Darkness will not.