Ever taken a look at those cave-dwelling, bottom-lurking creatures that have adapted to the dark? They are interesting beyond belief. Their standard-issue organs go dormant, to be replaced with specialised appendages, antennae, and adaptive organs to make their way around.
The same thing happens to our souls, to our understanding of what life and love, childbearing and sexuality mean, if we spend too many generations shutting out the light. We sprout cumbersome appendages to our consciences; we develop outlandish workarounds to facing the truth. We have eyes still, but they no longer function. A sense of right and wrong is still graven in our hearts, but layer after layer of scar tissue forms over it until our hearts appear blank. Whatever we want to write on them, we may: we call it “our truth”, and it passes, in the dark. It passes.
Read the rest of my latest at the Catholic Herald UK.
Image by Mark Basarab via Unslplash
This was a beautiful piece. Most of us don’t realize how much darkness we’ve accommodated.
It would be easier if we just died, but as you said, most of us don’t.
But this is a gift, to be given the chance to grope through the darkness….
Yah, everyone knows only mothers need work/life balance. Maybe dads for a couple weeks too. Yeah we’ll throw them in. The rest of you who haven’t used your uterus lately, get back to your infinitely less meaningful drudgery.