Out of the shadows

You precious angels of light, you who thought you were only mortal, long imprisoned in the shadows of this dark prison, see beyond the darkness around you.  Look up, look around, and you will see, even if only fleetingly, that these walls are not real, mere illusions of other's fears, even fears born of the challenge your own freedom offers them.


As a shadow chases ahead of a child running on the beach, so the dark forces of this world blind us to our destiny, block our awareness of where we are going, thwarting our path even threatening our souls, tugging at all our personal lifelines to our transitory lives.  Each step we make in the right direction feels blocked, darkened, by something, someone - a force - a lie - a decption - a trick and we are swept away into another world, darker, yet filled with the illusion of truth.  Something within you is always there, always leaning in to hear more closely, understand more clearly, seeking and finally, finding, the truth.  


Sometimes I think that the harder the situation is, the more piercingly painful, the more it threatens your very life and sanity, the closer you are to finding the way out of the inner prison, that virtual hell that haunts the soul.  The haunting, the pain, the sorrow, is the symptom of the shadow's presence and yet it is also a symptom that you are very much on the right track, on the path to light, truth and peace. 


There is a kind of gravitational momentum on the Earth today.  It is in full steam ahead, attempting to block we soldiers of light, we disciples of the Christ, who search for God under every rock and in every dark place.  The path of Christ is not a Sunday stroll through a rose garden.  It is a hard hike through dark woods and treacherous mountain ravines.  And, you cannot know ahead, why or what for you are being led by the Divine through whatever travails on your path.  But, you must, as Jesus languished in the desert for a painfully long time, thirsty, hungry, tired and terribly tempted to give up, to give in, even to the point not realizing who he would be, persevere.


The shadow may block the light, but it cannot extinguish it.  There is a way out. The challenge is to find it. We have to learn how to see in the dark. We have to learn, accept, that if we are being chased by the shadow of death, that we are indeed being chased for a very good reason:  We are a threat to the dark forces.  We just may find the light and the manipulations and lies, the deceptive effort to extract our beautiful power, to trick it out of us, to exhaust us, to lure us to give up the good fight, would be revealed and thwarted.  Perhaps, in some strange way, it's the ancient foe we are dueling with.  In all its insanity, it stalks us, it lies to us, and in our innocence we once believed it, when we see what it always was, we continue on the way, the way of Christ, the way of light, the way of the cross, still free, still alive, still full of light and still innocent.  


The darkness cannot overcome the light.  It still shines in the darkness, but do not be fooled.  It is there.  It is a real oppressor and controller.  If there is anything you can do when you are under spiritual warfare, it is to look through the shadow it casts and you will make out the path through it.  It is only a cloud that dissipates when the sun comes out.


That, my dear ones, is what Lent is.  We are on the way, we are walking the path of light higher and higher as we ascend out of these dark times.  No one ever said it would be easy, but it is the only way out of this hell.