Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

by Barbara Brown Taylor

After reading this, I close the book and turn off the light by my bed. It is only dark for a moment before I see the small eyes looking back at me from all over the room—phone charger, printer power button, radio dial, digital clock—plus the light on the side of my computer that tells me it is sleeping, casting a wide shadow on my wall that rises and falls with every virtual breath. How did I ever mistake this for dark? One by one I unplug them all, though it means waking the computer up to turn it off and resetting the clock in the morning. Then I walk through the house like Nyx, drawing the curtain of darkness behind me as I go. When all the lights are off, there is still plenty of light left, both inside and outside of me. On the spot, I decide to rename my children: Rest, Hush, Tribe of Stars, Slow, Truce, and—depending on whom you ask—Dazzle. If I want to get to know them, there is no better time than now. All I have to do is sit right where I am, letting them come to me for once instead of sending them away.