The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on November 23rd, 2022 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
Groping. Needing something to hold on to. Trying to find our way. Stumbling over unseen obstacles. Feeling lost and forgotten, unseen.
Darkness in prayer can be dismal. Darkness can feel scary, uncomfortable, overwhelming, and empty.
We may wonder, then: why do so many mystics and prayer masters invite us to befriend darkness, to embrace unknowing? Surely, just as darkness can dismay, it can also delight. However, the delight of darkness is not found on the surface of life, but rather in its depths and hidden crevices.
One example of the delight of darkness is when pain or grief carves out a space within us. It leaves us feeling empty—yet also creates room, where there might not have been any before, for something wonderful. The cutting quality of sorrow carves a new space for joy and love.
Another example is when darkness or unknowing surprises us. We might be anguishing over the choice between one path or another, when suddenly a third option emerges out of our unknowing—one we might never have been able to imagine if we had not waited so long in the dark. While the delights of our prayers in the dark may not necessarily feel good, they usually do shape and form us toward the good by stretching and surprising us.
Darkness comes in many forms: the cozy space under a blanket, the cold container of the ground holding a seed, the vast expanse of the night sky. In its many forms, our prayers in darkness invite us into a deep posture of trust in the good that eventually gives life.
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