Some conclusions

Just below, I spoke about my personal memories. There are some conclusions I'd like to draw for myself and which might perhaps be useful for you, too.

Walk boldly into your darknesses and walk patiently through them! The light won't be lost completely - as long as you feel the dark to be dark, there's still a glimmer of light with you. Also, the bright skies and green pastures are quietly waiting for you, you needn't miss them.

Your darknesses are within you, every day. It's unnecessary to cultivate them or play with them.

It's a fearful thing to inflict such darknesses on others. And that's, as far as I see, the begin and the end of all morals.

Oughtn't our religion rely more on our darknesses? That's something we have with us all days. And even if I won't deny that there's somewhat of God's light in everyone - the unity of mankind can be demonstrated simpler and quicker on the base of its darknesses. Take two persons from whereever, and there will be at least some dark experiences or some dark passions they share.

Some personal memories

Once for a time I attended Quaker meetings for worship. Which meant, roughly speaking, that we sat silently, waiting for what would well up in our minds and hearts.

Now for me, what welled up was nearly always a dark experience, perhaps a big one out of my childhood, perhaps a petty one from last week. And by "dark experiences" I mean damages or losses or inabilities to achieve something I longed for - or, connected with particular persons, feeling damaged or robbed, oppressed, disrespected or alienated by them.
And with that dark experiences there welled up the dark passions: distrust and fear, envy, jealousy, acute hate and that sort of deep-seated bitterness which destroys any kind stirring you may feel in your heart.
(I must add that after a while those experiences and passions left me; and if I ever have felt "broken" or "humble", but at the same time alleviated, freed and open, it was at the end of such a meeting.)

I was rather disinquieted by that all. Shouldn't I have, in a Quaker meeting, experiences of light instead of darkness? So I found some consolation in the following passage in George Fox' Journal:
"the Lord showed me that the natures of those things, which were hurtful without, were within, in the hearts and minds of wicked men...the natures of these I saw within, though people had been looking without. I cried to the Lord, saying, 'Why should I be thus, seeing I was never addicted to commit those evils...' and the Lord answered, 'That it was needful I should have a sense of all conditions, how else should I speak to all conditions!' and in this I saw the infinite love of God." So at least, whatever difference in detail, Fox had felt those dark passions as well and accepted them as something God had sent him for his good or for the good of others.

“I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God; and I had great openings.” —George Fox

That's the quotation I want to start my blog with.