Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Finding Peace in the Darkness {Reflections}
What if the darkness you fear is the key to discovering a deeper connection with the divine? This week on Reflections, Ryan takes you through his transformative journey during a five-day retreat in the wild mountains of Colorado. Inspired by the teachings of Thomas Merton, Ryan recounts a profound night watch experience that reshaped his relationship with the night. In the deep silence and solitude, as the sun set and darkness wrapped itself around him, Ryan found unexpected peace and clarity, challenging the conventional fear of the dark.
Join us as we explore the retreat's mission to connect with the divine in untamed places, stepping away from the structured confines of modern life. Ryan shares personal anecdotes from his time under a great tree by a stream, a setting that invoked a profound sense of calm and spiritual awakening. This episode is an invitation to embrace the night, confront your feelings about darkness, and discover the transformative power of nature. Tune in to learn how this unique retreat experience can inspire you to find spiritual connection and solace in the wild.
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What is up everybody Ryan here. Hey, welcome to our Reflections podcast. I want to do one more episode on my retreat. I just went on so in case you didn't hear previous episodes. I went on a five-day retreat up into the mountains of Colorado, on the western side, and it was like a five-day silence and solitude. There was other people there too, but it was called like doing soul work and encountering the divine in wild and untamed places, which is actually what I'm doing some of my doctoral work on as well, but sort of being in nature and discovering God in these wild places, which is sometimes easier maybe not for others, but then, you know, in these structured buildings and developed parts of the world, it can be easier to kind of like let go of all those things, get off the grid and find God when you're in wild places. And anyway, one night this is one of the coolest things that we did One of the nights we would kind of wrap up every night around nine o'clock and then go back to your camp and by then it's getting pretty dark and then we were out tenting.
Speaker 1:So you get in your tent and go to sleep and then you get up in the morning, but night we gathered. And we were gathering when it was getting dark around nine o'clock and they said here's what we're going to do. We're going to go and sit some, go for a wander, find a place in the woods and let the darkness just settle in. We're going to stay awake and as the sun sets and then let it get dark all around you, and it was called like a night watch or something like that and so stay awake as the night begins to creep in and experience the night kind of falling and encountering the darkness. And I was like, oh, this is going to be wild. And so they said you can stay out there as long as you want to on this night watch and you know, search for God or pray or be in the quiet, but just notice what your relationship is with the darkness.
Speaker 1:And one of the things they said before we went out there is they quoted Thomas Merton. Who's this really brilliant monk? And Thomas Merton would often be in these night prayers, like he was like a night vigil, night watcher, where he would pray throughout the night. And Thomas Merton loved the darkness. And I don't know if he loved it, but he said that he discovered, he sort of felt the presence of God more at night, more strongly at night than during the day. And they quoted he said this Thomas Merton says I've seen the day and the night and the night is better. Thomas Merton, I love it. I've seen the day and the night and the night is better. He also says hey, in the nighttime he's talking about God. You've confronted me, scattering thought and reason. You have descended upon me with great gentleness, with most forbearing silence, in this inexplicable night dispersing light, defeating all desire. So he had this like love relationship with the night.
Speaker 1:But it was also a bit of tension, because the night and the darkness, if you're really out in real darkness, which we rarely encounter any longer, because we're inside, we can turn on and off lights, which is at our, you know, at whim, but to be outside in the utter darkness. And so for me, I walked out to this one little spot that I'd found earlier on, that was under this great big tree and near a little stream, and I wanted to be under the trees because the moon was so bright and brilliant, it kind of lit up a lot of the night, but I wanted to be under trees where it would be really really dark. And it was incredible because I noticed a couple of things right away. One is that as the night began to fall and as darkness began to kind of wrap itself around me which is what it felt like it felt like darkness was kind of just wrapping itself around me. I didn't feel afraid, and you know they were saying, hey, you might be afraid, so you can. There's a couple of things you can do to kind of ease your fear. And I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't feel any fear at all. I just felt like the darkness kind of wrap around me, almost like this blanket, and I noticed that I wasn't afraid. And then also I noticed this as I was laying there under this tree, as the darkness came.
Speaker 1:In many cultures and in places and throughout time, people have viewed the dawn as new life and beginnings and these kinds of things, and they've also seen the night, the evening and darkness coming as kind of the end and a metaphor for death or dying or the end of the journey. And I began to experience, in that moment anyway, the darkness like that. I was like, oh, this is like a practice for the end of my own life. I'm only 44. And so, hopefully, god willing, I have many more decades to come. But there's a part of me that even now, at 44, doesn't want to die, and maybe you resonate with that, or is maybe a bit afraid of dying. And so I'm trying to, as a 44-year-old man, to embrace, all along the way, ways of practicing letting go. I'm not practicing dying literally, I'm just meaning letting go along the way so that when it comes time for me to die, I'll be more ready to kind of let go.
Speaker 1:And so, in the night, what came to me was this idea of practicing letting go. Because, look, darkness is, it can be ominous. You can feel out of control, you can't see anything. Really. It's just like you really lose grip on reality a bit. You know, the darkness is a great place for the imagination to kind of run wild, which could be cool or it could be bad. You start imagining things in the darkness, you know and, by the way, this is a good time to mention that most of us are not afraid of being alone in the dark. We're afraid of not being alone in the dark, you know what I'm saying. But anyway, afraid of being alone in the dark, we're afraid of not being alone in the dark. You know what I'm saying, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So there's this moment where you let go. You're like, hey, I'm out here, I cannot control nature, I can't control the sun setting, I cannot control the darkness coming over me. So I'm going to let go and, in a very small way, practice letting go and even preparing in this way, this metaphorical kind of I know it's poetic but the night coming, the end of the day, which is symbol for the end of life, and me letting go and embracing whatever it is to come and the mystery beyond death as well. And so in that night I didn't feel afraid and I guess you could say I felt God in this very sort of specific way or poetic way, that I just felt very much at peace with the darkness wrapping itself around me. I could hear the river going nearby, I could see some of the stars, the moon was behind me and I began to practice letting go.
Speaker 1:And so I guess I would ask you today what is your relationship with the darkness? Are there ways in which you can do your own kind of night watch, or get up in the middle of the night and go out into the wild, or just in your backyard even? Maybe it isn't so wild. And what do you experience? What do you notice? Can you find God there? Like Thomas Merton said, I've seen the day and the night, and the night is better.
Speaker 1:And that guy, thomas Merton, he felt the presence of God more tangibly in the night. And I wonder if it's not because you have to let go in the darkness? You can't control what you see, what you think, what you experience, because you can't see anything. And so today, may you know the mystery and the wonder of God that's oftentimes found at least for Thomas Merton and for myself last week, that it's found in the darkness. And may you be ready and be prepared, and may you practice this idea of letting go of the things in our life that we cling to so desperately in order to prepare for the great and final one day, hopefully, god willing, down the road, but this idea of letting go of our very lives. All right, love you guys, peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 830, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering, or you can check us out online at clcelkriverorg Peace.
