Dealing With Our Darkness

Darkness yields light, light yields darkness. As cliche and old as that expression is, the truth of it holds validity every single day with the rising and setting of the sun. For a lot of people, life is about finding as much light as possible. Historically that is the track that we’ve taken. The invention of electricity was a direct result of us longing to be in the light more than the dark. In light we can see, in light things are clear, and in light we can be aware as to where we are and what exactly is going on.

 This is true psychologically as much as it is physically. We are surrounded by a culture here in the west that encourages self empowerment. With add slogans like “have it your way” and “put a smile on” we are engrained in a thought process that encourages us to embrace happiness and repress sadness. We laugh off uncomfortable things. The comedians job is to unveil ones unconscious repressions just long enough that they can laugh them off. One laughs out of the uncomfortable truth the comedians truth exposes. When one leaves a comedy show, they may go out to a club with friends, drink to a point of inebriation, and dance to music with a message of inauthentic happiness only to distract themselves from the terrifying unmasking of who they really are that the comedian just exposed only a few hours previously. 

We don’t like darkness. We like to hide our ghosts deep within us. But the problem with that is, as Peter Rollins points out so well, is that when we hide our ghosts, they show up at the must unfortunate of times. Creeping up on us to haunt us in our darkest days. 

In The Gospel of Thomas which is a part of the Apocrypha (books that weren’t deemed worthy to be in Protestant Bibles but are still in some Catholic ones) there is a quote that reads as follows, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.” I find this absolutely fascinating. 

The things that haunt us must be unmasked. They must be brought to light in order for us to be able to unveil them. This is why a church can be so toxic if all it talks about is right belief without also promoting attendees to wrestling with and embrace the reality of doubt and questioning. Sunday services have largely become nothing more than a medication we take once a week to help us repress the difficulties we face Monday through Saturday.

If we don’t deal with the harsh realities and try and cover them up with bandaids, those bandaids are bound to fall off. Drinking to get drunk is a bandaid. Constant clubbing and dancing to pop music about self entitlement is a bandaid. Purchasing products to make you feel accomplished or somehow important is bandaid. A sermon about how you're loved by God and will someday be with “Him” somewhere else is a bandaid. We are a bandaid culture.

Yet everyone knows that even the rawest of wounds need exposure to heal properly. Our wounds need to be brought to light. They must be unasked in order for them not to scar. 

There are many ways to go about this. Honest conversation over a few beers leads to a looseness but functioning consciousness that leads to openness where individuals can honestly express what’s wrong in their life. In this sense alcohol is a gift, but we have unfortunately turned it into just another tool to repress our worries and struggles. Other ways to cope with the dark sides of life are movies with sad endings, and my personal favorite, sad songs.

I can almost guarantee your response to some of these suggestions was, “wow, that’s incredibly depressing” or, if you’re my parents, “why is Mikey talking about drinking a few beers…” 

However, the reality of the situation is it is not “depressing” but inherently necessary. We are taught to constantly live in light and never deal with darkness, I touched on that in the beginning of this post. That leads to any idea of darkness as being depressing in the mind of most. But I want to argue that is incredibly unhealthy. For if you don’t reveal what is wrong, what is within you will destroy you, as Thomas so eloquently states.

In a post to come in about two weeks I’m going to do my first album review on the upcoming Death Cab for Cutie release “Kintsugi.” I’d strongly recommend you check out some of the singles they’ve released so far to get a feel for what I think may be one of the bands best music to date. The album title, Kintsugi, derives from an ancient Japanese art where one takes broken pieces of pottery and molds the cracks back together with a gold or silver paste. This form of art doesn’t try and hide the broken pieces tied to it, but portray them as part of the beauty and past of the piece… amazing. More to come on that in the coming weeks. But for now, start trying to unmask your worries, struggles, burdens, ghosts, and sadness. For the transformation of our struggles leads to new and invigorating inspiration. Also, you’ll find below links to the Death Cab singles as well as a picture of a piece of pottery that has had the art of kintsugi done on it. 

Death Cab Singles thus far:

Black Sun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkNTU0DWfXI

No Room in Frame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxTH8GZ4PC4

The Ghosts of Beverly Drive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ccoMjPNG4

Little Wanderer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io9ivuo4r6Q 

Microscopes, Stained Glass, and the Sun

At the Rob Bell event I went to this past week, we talked about how everything connects to everything else. Within the fundamental make up of the universe there is this thread that ties everything together. Something unites things that aren’t similar and that unification is the recognition that within everything, there is always something more going on. We are to be actively renewing our minds to see the incredible work unfolding around us. I thought I’d give that a try in this blog post.

I’m going to talk about microscopes, stained glass, and the sun.

As every kid who ever had a middle school biology class is aware, microscopes allow us to see things that we would otherwise not see. A microscope is a tool we use in order to analyze and collect data for small things that we are progressively finding more and more about. Bacteria, germs, atomic structures, you name it. Whatever is small, a microscope magnifies. A microscope allows us to dive deeper, see what we would otherwise not without it, and advances us forward in our understanding of the world. 

Stained glass is an art that a lot of people associate with old church buildings. It’s tied to history. Unlike the microscope, it would seem that stained glass is pulling us back to a previous time. A time where we would rather not go. A time that seems stuck in tradition and not relevant enough for where we are as a society now. But have you ever looked at stain glass as the sun radiated through it? Have you ever seen the colors that make up a stain glass window become illuminated in such a way that they seem to be showing shades that you’ve never even seen before? Stained glass is beautiful. Antiquity is beautiful. Things aren’t bad because they are a part of our past. In fact, our past is what got us here. We need the past. We need to be reminded of the beauty it can hold. And when we look to the past, often times we can see things that we would otherwise never be able to see.

The sun is this big booming bright orb that is super hot. It burns our skin. Melts our ice. Calls us outside. And illuminates the beauty that it sustains in nature. The sun is constant. It is a thing that as long as life itself has been around, it will be. And as long as life stays around, it will be. The sun is both behind and ahead of us. The sun sustains. The sun is to life on earth what coffee is to a Seattleite. The sun is a must. 

The question then becomes, what exactly does this all mean? What is the point of these three independent variables being grouped together? Well, it’s quite simple really. A healthy perspective on God relies on the microscope and the stained glass, and an understanding of what the sun stands for.

Microscopes push us forward. Without them, we’d be living in a time with terrible disease and far less potential than we have now. If we don’t integrate the microscope of God into our definition of God we begin to limit what exactly God is up to. Science is a good thing. Expanding consciousness is a good thing. New perspectives are a good thing. They keep our pulse going. They sustain us. 

However, too much microscope can limit people form the full potential of God and can also make people a bit too high and mighty. Stained glass is important because it’s a reminder that something of the past can still evoke positive emotion and an appreciation while simultaneously reminding us that the past isn’t all dark and gross, but actually quite beautiful. Stained glass humbles our advanced minds. It keeps us in check. It calls for a balance.

However, without the sun, neither one of these two realities is possible because the sun is the sustaining beat. The driving force. When we realize that everything is under the sun, everything has life because the sun, and that all can be illuminate in new light as a direct result of the sun, we begin to see just how important the sun is. The sun is God. Not literally I don’t think, but more metaphorically. The sun is the beginning and the end. The thing that illuminated the first truth and what will illuminate the last truth and the light what shined equally to every truth expressed in between. The sun will always be here. Whether it’s shining through stained glass or providing the light to see what’s being studied beneath the microscope. The sun is outside of everything yet simultaneously the driving force behind everything.

So embrace the microscope. Embrace the stained glass. And begin to see how whether past or future, all in some way are an illumination of the sun.

Bell, Rohr, and Something I Learned in Laguna Beach

Have you ever tasted a food so great that when you try and explain the taste you can’t help but realize that you’ll never be able to properly express the experience? Or, have you ever listened to a song and you try humming it for someone or even showing it to them but you know that your explanation can’t do it justice because it spoke something so necessary to you at that moment that any words you use will fall short? Or maybe you went on a hike and the sun hit the trees in such a way that you couldn’t help but stop and stare. You tried to take a picture but you know any photo you take will undoubtedly fall short of the experience? 

Yeah, I’m in the midst of one of these experiences. And I’m going to try and put it into words. Not to try and make you feel like you were a part of the reality necessarily, but to hopefully provide an example that hints at one of the lessons that was powerful to me.

I’m currently in between two Rob Bell events in Laguna Beach, California. The first one ended tonight and started yesterday evening. Rob Bell and Richard Rohr conducted the conversation together. One would speak, the other would be speak, and then the two minds would come together to converse about what each had to see. Rohr spoke with his grandfatherly wisdom, talking about concepts spanning from the cosmic Christ, to a Paul being Christianity's first mystic. Bell did what he is so great at doing. Talking about the absolutely mind blowing scientific theories that point to us being apart of something extraordinary. Both of them combining to create a message of hope not dependent on idyllic projection, but based on an empowerment to see God in the midst of the ever beckoning spiritual reality unfolding all around us.

Now, although this post could play as a simple summary of all the profound things I heard the past 36 hours, that would be nothing more than an explanation of a song you hadn’t experienced yourself. So, instead, I’ll put the ideas into my own words through personal story. And although that may seem too personal to make sense, I believe the lesson is quite clear and universal.

Bell emphasized how expansion is an essential part of the reality of life, and an essential part of the whole of existence. From the Big Bang to changing where we live when we go off to school, healthy realities are all about expansion. What expansion requires, on the personal level at least, is for us to step outside the realm of being comfortable and secure. In order for benefit to be presented in our lives, we must change the norm. Expansion requires boldness. 

The summer of my senior year of High School, I shifted my youth group mentality to one revolving around girls, drinking, and occasional other illicit activities. My mom took notice to this and on one of our reoccurring trips to the bookstore asked me to pick out a book for us to read and discuss over lunch. I picked a book I knew was somewhat controversial within Christianity and accepted my moms offer. That book ended up completely revitalized my faith and allowed me to see God in a whole different way. I accepted the new challenge to hold onto this somewhat controversial version of faith. 

At the end of that summer, I moved 2,000 miles away from everything I had ever known and loved. I headed across the country to pursue schooling at a Bible College I knew full well would be at best be hesitant to my newly discovered progressive faith. A few weeks in, my assumptions proved to be true. After sitting through incredibly uncomfortable lectures, it became quite clear the institution I went to’s idea of God and my idea of God were drastically different. We were at “different stages of consciousness" as both Rohr and Bell would say. 

My freshman year was full of argument, resentment, occasional deep loneliness, and the weekly 10 mile walks in the Spring to get away. All the friendships I had were slightly tainted due to the frustration I had toward the people at the school and how they weren’t at the place I was as far as how they viewed God. I developed an ego. I thought I was better and with that came a slight arrogance and an unhealthy perception of myself

At this point you’re probably thinking “Alright Mike, great sob story. But what’s the point?” Great question!

To flash back… I moved away. It required expansion. I read a book that opened me up to new perspectives before I moved. It yielded expansion. I went to a school where people were at different levels of understanding. So what did I do? I tried to force expansion. 

When expansion is unfolding, it is beneficial. When it is forced, it becomes unwanted dogma that leads to argument and tainted relationship.

The initial expansion of moving out west and the reading of that book the summer before I moved eventually led to the reality of sitting on a balcony in Laguna Beach writing this post right now. And you know what I realize now because of it? All of the expansion in my life thus far has been incredibly beneficial to me, but has had a very limited impact on the lives of those who I encounter. 

The most recent expansion of my conciseness that is a direct result of what was revealed to me at this event has taught that although the expansion I’ve encountered is good and life giving, I should never try to force expansion in others. Force being the key word there.

Everyone is evolving. We are all headed somewhere. But just as every story within the binds of a book goes at its own pace, so to does the life of everyone on this journey we call existence. And that’s beautiful. That’s powerful. This week I’ve been able to eat bacon cheeseburgers covered in guacamole alongside people who have had the same evolution of understanding that I have. It’s been amazing. But if every persons life was at the same place of conciseness and that’s all we ever encountered, how incredibly stale would that get?

Laguna Beach is an art town. The wonderful thing about art is not only is every piece different, but so is every genre. Within all the different genres we find different beauty. The same is true of the human psyche. The sooner we realize that pushing our own agenda actually limits the potential the artist of the art can have, the sooner we recognize how much beauty there is in the art all around us. 

We are all on a journey. Searching, discovering, despairing, hoping. It’s a never ending mystery. There are many mysteries in Laguna Beach. It is, after all, where the show Scooby Doo is set. But the one mystery I solved on this trip is the reality that each person is in the process of uncovering their own story. That process is not one for me to interfere with. But is a process that I can occasionally leave a clue in to help them along their way with the hope that someone ahead of myself in understanding will leave clues for me to find as well.