The Bruised Heart

E. Herman in her little book, The Touch of God, reminds me that we only know light because of darkness.  Without the darkness we would not really know what light is.  Night brings the dawn. I know that sounds corny, but isn’t it true?  It is often in the darkest times of human experience that we discover the secrets of truth (of love and light).  

In the darkest periods of history light has come and it was the very darkness that called it forth.  It was the frustration and the suffering felt by the American colonies that prompted the bright light that burned the noble words upon the parchment called the Declaration of Independence.  It was the darkness of brother pitted against brother, Cain against Abel, the terrible, violent darkness of  fratricide, that freed this nation of the plague of slavery.   It was through the darkness of segregation that light came in the form of the Civil Rights movement.  Yes, without darkness we might never know the light.  Without strife, suffering, anguish, and pain (the  darkness)  there could be no dawning of new awareness or new truth.

The present time in our American life looks and feels dark to me, but I am convinced that out of  the darkness the light will break forth.  It is often through the dark times that we receive the gifts of wisdom and insight.  I really believe that we, as Americans, will bridge the gap that presently divides us, that we will discover in the present turmoil that our long-held value of every person, created and endowed with certain unalienable rights will break through—not just for some—but for all.  When I sing the National Anthem (a song born out of darkness) I see that “star-bangled banner” not as a flag, but as “light”—the ideal, a dream, a vision of what we can be as a nation and what we proclaim to be as a people.

The light breaks forth from the darkness that often pervades our personal lives, too. “Suffering is not a mystery,” wrote a person who suffered deeply, “it is a revelation!  It seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering (darkness) that there is in the world.” (You may have to think long and hard over that statement as I have done and still do).  E. Herman says, “There are songs that can only be learnt in the night of weeping. There is a grace that can only be born of sore travail.”  

Those who have glimpses of the light breaking through the darkness (whether in our society, nation, or our personal lives) “march to a music which only bruised hearts can hear.”  Is your heart bruised by the darkness?  Mine is!