Black Holes

Have you noticed how consistent are the laws of nature? Nature has been carefully and thoughtfully constructed, not a willy-nilly whirly gig that randomly spins. Even the changeable things, like the weather, volcanoes, earthquakes, are somewhat predictable in their presentation, though cloaked in uncertainty. Most things do remain conventional. Gravity persists in its properties. Day and night comes and goes. The stars and moon shine no matter what goes on in the dark. And the sun illuminates our galaxy, even to places invisible to the human eye.

Negative energy, I have found, has a profound effect when I encounter it. It may be something as simple as another person’s propensity towards discouragement or expectation of problems; the tone I hear in an email or text that sounds confrontational; a presumed correction to an opinion I have shared that feels like I have not been heard. Any number of everyday experiences that others might laugh off, or not recognize. Why the sensitivity to such things? Maybe I have encountered those feelings enough in my life to recognize them quickly. The challenge: how to get past those black holes that, set like vacuums on super high, threaten to suck me in . . . or at least drain me of the joy and enthusiasm I had before. Feelings, of course, are capricious, and one certainly cannot rely on feelings alone to guide one’s feet or decisions. Still, they need dealt with, lest they take rule.

To escape my black holes I head to my favorite writing chair, cloister myself in the silence, and listen, with God’s Holy Spirit, to what is going in inside of me. Why the disturbance to my peace? What are the real reasons for the ruffles that cause the waves? The sooner they can be identified, faced, and fished out of my slough, the sooner will I know how to best side step the appearance of the next black hole. Whether a black hole of my digging, or one opened by another, it is still up to me to navigate the terrain.

Black holes have their own consistent properties. In space they have been found to so powerfully attract whatever is around them, nothing caught in their huge gravitational pull can escape their depths. Happily the personal black holes that yank at my mind can be overcome, with the silent contemplation of honest and open prayer, sometimes with the help from others, but in all, the brave facing of them. Sure, denial of a dark presence might work for awhile, but eventually it needs to be faced ere it suck me in.

Darkness is a formidable foe, indeed. Yet one that can be overcome. Strike a match in a completely dark room and see how instantaneously the darkness recedes from the light. Light a candle and the glow increases. It truly is phenomenal, and lovely, the warmth of light in a cold, dark, lonely, confusing place. What joy that in our dark experiences light still shines if we would but look for it. More faithful than the turning of the days, this Light (that does not require night vision goggles) never ends, a light grand and powerful enough to overcome all manner of black holes.

John 1:5 (HCSB). That light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it.

John 8:12 (HCSB) Then Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”

Psalm 139:12(HCSB) even the darkness is not dark to You. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to You.