When the Darkness Calls Itself Light

The terrible mercy of seeing what is within

“Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.”

— Luke 11:35

There are sins we recognize as sins.

And then there are the more dangerous things: the darkness we have learned to call light.

Christ speaks today not merely about blindness, but about a blindness that believes it can see.

“Be careful lest the light in you be darkness.”

It may be one of the most frightening warnings in the Gospel.

For the man who knows he is blind may cry out for sight. The man who knows he is lost may ask for a road home. The man who knows himself to be sick may finally submit himself to the physician.

But what can be done for the man who has made peace with his blindness because he has given it another name?

Discernment.

Prudence.

Orthodoxy.

Obedience.

Zeal.

Tradition.

Responsibility.

Even love.

The human heart is capable of taking almost anything—even something holy—and using it to hide from God.

This is why the Desert Fathers were so merciless about self-knowledge.

Not because they despised the human person.

Because they knew how easily we deceive ourselves.

A brother could fast severely and still be consumed by judgment.

He could keep vigil through the night and remain unable to forgive.

He could know the Scriptures and sayings of the elders by heart and still be governed by vainglory.

He could leave the world and carry the whole world into his cell.

The problem was never merely what surrounded him.

The battlefield was within.

This is precisely where Christ takes the Pharisee.

The Pharisee notices that Jesus has not washed before eating.

Notice the terrible smallness of it.

The living God is sitting at his table.

The One through whom all things were made is before him.

Wisdom Himself has entered his house.

And the man notices the washing of hands.

This is what happens when the eye becomes diseased.

We can stand before God and notice the wrong thing.

We can become extraordinarily attentive to religious things while remaining almost completely inattentive to God.

And Christ turns the cup over.

“You cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside…”

Inside.

That is where Christ is always trying to take us.

And it is precisely where we resist going.

We would rather improve the outside.

Adjust the rule.

Perfect the practice.

Find the correct language.

Defend the correct position.

Acquire another book.

Attend another retreat.

Listen to another conference.

Even confess the same sins again without ever allowing God to touch the place from which they arise.

There is nothing wrong with these things in themselves. Many are necessary.

But none of them can substitute for purification of heart.

We have spoken often in our groups about the danger of turning the spiritual life into a kind of spiritual commerce: I give God this, therefore I should receive that.

I fast.

I pray.

I keep the rule.

I attend the services.

I perform the obligations.

Therefore I must be progressing.

The Fathers would not permit such calculations.

They asked a more frightening question:

What are you becoming?

Are you becoming merciful?

Are you becoming less defensive?

Less easily offended?

Less interested in being seen?

Less compelled to justify yourself?

Can you endure being misunderstood without immediately constructing a defense?

Can you rejoice when another is praised?

Can you remain before God when prayer gives you nothing?

Can you love when love costs you something?

Can you relinquish your imagined control over another person’s life?

Can you say, with your whole heart, I am not Providence?

These questions begin to reveal whether the lamp is actually burning.

Because Christianity is not cosmetic.

Grace does not polish the outside of the cup.

Grace burns.

This is why Abba Joseph’s words to Abba Lot remain so terrifyingly beautiful:

“If you will, you can become all flame.”

Not appear aflame.

Not speak about fire.

Not organize conferences about fire.

Not become an expert in the writings of those who burned.

Become fire.

That is an entirely different thing.

And perhaps this is why so much of the spiritual life eventually becomes a stripping away.

At first we imagine holiness as acquisition.

More prayer.

More knowledge.

More discipline.

More certainty.

Later, if God is merciful, we discover that much of the journey consists in losing.

Losing illusions.

Losing self-images.

Losing our need to control how others perceive us.

Losing the stories we have constructed about who we are supposed to become.

Losing even certain religious securities behind which we have hidden.

This is not necessarily spiritual failure.

It may be illumination.

The lamp has begun to shine into rooms we preferred to keep locked.

And when that happens, we must resist the temptation to run immediately toward explanation.

The Fathers teach us instead to remain there.

Stay in the cell.

Stay before God.

Let the light expose what the light exposes.

This is stability at its deepest level.

Stability does not mean that nothing within us moves.

It means that when everything within us moves, we do not flee from God.

When consolation disappears, we remain.

When our image of ourselves collapses, we remain.

When the future becomes uncertain, we remain.

When we discover motives within ourselves that embarrass us, we remain.

When prayer feels empty, we remain.

When God dismantles the life we thought we were supposed to have, we remain.

Not because we understand.

Because He is there.

And gradually something extraordinary happens.

The division between outside and inside begins to disappear.

We no longer need to manufacture the appearance of holiness.

We no longer need everyone to understand us.

We no longer need to defend every decision.

We no longer need to appear strong when we are weak.

We no longer need to call darkness light.

We can simply bring the darkness to Christ.

And this may be the beginning of real purity.

Not having nothing dark within us.

But hiding nothing from the Light.

Christ ends with an astonishing command:

“Give for alms those things which are within.”

Give away what is within.

Perhaps this is the final poverty.

Give God the fear.

Give Him the ambition.

Give Him the resentment.

Give Him the carefully defended identity.

Give Him the need to be right.

Give Him the future you have already written.

Give Him even the spiritual life you thought you were constructing for Him.

Open the cup.

Let Him see everything.

He already does.

The only one being protected by our concealment is the false self.

And perhaps this is what we fear most about the light.

Not that God will discover who we are.

But that we will.

Yet the Fathers knew something else.

The light that exposes is the same light that heals.

The Physician does not uncover the wound in order to humiliate the sick man.

He uncovers it because wounds hidden beneath beautiful garments remain wounds.

So Christ speaks fiercely.

“You fools!”

Not because He wishes to crush them.

Because He wishes to awaken them.

The Bridegroom is standing at the table.

The Kingdom has entered the house.

And they are discussing the dishes.

How much of our lives are spent doing the same?

We arrange.

We explain.

We defend.

We polish.

We worry about how everything appears.

Meanwhile Christ waits within.

There comes a moment when the soul must stop rearranging the outside of the cup.

There comes a moment when we must descend into the heart and stand before God without argument.

No performance.

No explanation.

No carefully maintained identity.

Only truth.

Only poverty.

Only the prayer of the publican:

God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

And perhaps then the words of Christ cease to sound merely like a warning.

They become a promise:

“If your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright.”

This is what the Fathers wanted.

Not religious respectability.

Not spiritual accomplishment.

Not an impressive exterior.

A human being so surrendered to God that there is nowhere left for darkness to hide.

A man transparent to grace.

A heart undivided.

A lamp burning quietly in the darkness.

A soul that has finally stopped trying to look like fire—

and has consented to burn.