Darkness and Light

Yesterday I began a new short story in response to a disturbing event that occurred this past week. A couple tentative titles await the completion of this tale: "An Ethical Adjustment" or "The Cupboards Were Bare." 

In the meantime, his morning I woke thinking about a different theme that has been wriggling around in my brain: Darkness and Light.

Darkness is one of those simple words that opens into deeper territory the longer you sit with it. At the most basic level, darkness is just the absence of light. When no photons reach your eyes, your brain has nothing to interpret, and you perceive black. In that sense, darkness isn’t a “thing” at all—it’s what we experience when something else is missing.

But we rarely use the word that way in ordinary life. We talk about darkness as if it has weight and presence. A room can feel dark even when there’s a lamp on. A story can turn dark without the sun setting. A mood can turn dark when we allow a dark thought to make its home in our thoughts. What’s happening there is psychological: darkness becomes a shorthand for uncertainty, danger, or the unknown. Our minds fill in what we cannot see, often with fear, and we all know how fear combined with unrestrained imagination can really twist our heads. (A couple of comical stories come to mind here about runaway paranoia that fortunately had a happy ending. Maybe you have such a memory.)

There’s also a moral dimension. Across cultures, darkness has been linked with ignorance, secrecy, or wrongdoing—“things done in the dark.” Not because darkness itself is evil, but because it conceals. When actions are hidden, accountability disappears. This is why a "free press" is an essential plank in our U.S. Constitution. (See: A Free Press Is Fundamental to Free Nation)

Darkness has another dimension as well. Seeds germinate in darkness underground. Sleep restores the body in the dark. The night sky reveals stars you’ll never see at noon. And I've never met anyone who's seen the breathtaking, shimmering wonder of Northern Lights during the day either. In short, darkness is not always a bad thing.   

By way of contrast light is the counterpart to darkness—but it’s more than just its opposite. At the physical level, light is energy. If I've got my physics right, it travels as electromagnetic waves—tiny packets called photons—moving incredibly fast (an amazing 186,000 miles per second). It’s what allows us to see: objects don’t “have” color on their own; they reflect light into our eyes, and our brains interpret those reflections as shapes, colors, and motion.

It's a strange thought to consider that without light the world is still there but it's hidden.

Light also conveys information. It reveals distance, texture, movement. It lets you recognize a face, read this blog, notice danger, or find your way home. When you look at yourself in a mirror, you see nothing until the lights are turned on. In that sense, light is not just illumination—it’s understanding made visible.

That’s why we use the word metaphorically so often. We speak of “shedding light” on a problem, of a “lightbulb moment,” of someone being “in the dark.” Light becomes a symbol for clarity, truth, awareness. Where light enters, confusion tends to retreat.

But like darkness, light isn’t always gentle. It can expose things we’d rather not see. It can be harsh, even blinding. A floodlight reveals, but it can also overwhelm.

So light is both physical and symbolic. Physically, it’s the energy that makes sight possible. Mentally, it’s the process of making sense of what’s there. Spiritually or morally, it often stands for truth, insight, or revelation.

It's this last dimension that I find especially profound when I consider what Jesus once said: "I am the light of the world." This is a statement with so any layers I can't begin to express it. 

My first thought pertains to the opening lines of the Book of Genesis, and God's first words, "Let there be light."

Here's the context: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

What Jesus said, though, has an even more startling suggestion. "I AM the light of the world." This phrase “I AM” comes from one of the most striking moments in the Old Testament, when God speaks to Moses from the burning bush in Book of Exodus (Exodus 3:14). Moses asks for God’s name, something concrete he can tell the Israelites. The answer he receives is most unusual: “I AM WHO I AM.”

Pursuing those ideas can be a long diversion, so I will simply call it another seed for your mind farm. How seeds germinate is a whole other post, and when they do they reach for the sun.

"Let there be light!"