And in the beginning, there was nothing but darkness all about.  I always assumed that this is where new souls originated, in the darkness, looking to find a way to the light.  Some do, I think, which explains why I'm here . . . but mabye some don't and are stil there waiting.  Perhaps the darkness is not just the birthplace of new souls, but one where old souls return to be reclycled . . . and to help guide infant souls to the light.  I think that's true because I seem to have a faint memory of a voice in the darkness, one that was distant but still distinct, that said:  Hey!  Anybody got a light?  

That had to be an old soul, you see, because a new soul wouldn't have known about light, having not yet experienced it.  But an old soul knew, and it didn't like the darkness and knew that somewhere close by, perhaps closer than any new soul surrounded by darkness could realize, was a lighted world.  I don't know for sure what happened next, but surely some curious new soul said, "What's a light?"  Thus was born the first discussion between souls . . . the old and the new . . . and this is where light was discovered by the new and rediscovered by the old.  Maybe from there the old soul taught the new one how to find a wall, and how to follow the wall to a doorway, and we all know that the switch is there beside the doorway, right?  And then you try the switch and nothing happens.  You're still in darkness, and suddenly you're thrown into despair because you think there is no way out for you.

This is where the old soul is valuable; this is our greatest source of learning about portals, doorways, or threshold.  You flick the switch and nothing happens because the light comes on inside another room, somewhere past the portal you've reached.  Finding the threshold is important, but not nearly as important as learing how to open the door and move into the light.  Life is all about portals, those doors that lead to lighted places.  I like to envision life as a mansion with an almost unlimited number of hallways and rooms.  Once we leave the basement, the room of darkness, our eyes begin to adjust to the light.  Perhaps at first we just experience a poorly lighted hallway, but as we become brave enought to move about, supported by the assistance of a wise old soul, we discover rooms . . . and we all need rooms to live in.

Someone once told me about his concept of life, his idea of how it was like wearing the same shirt all the time.  Life to him was something you wore, and from time to time it got too tight for you.  It was during these times, when life closes in and tries to restrict you, even choke you, that you must struggle and push at the sides and make it get loose again to where you can live within it comfortably.  It's similar to my mansion design of life, I suppose.  With me, the secret is in unlocking doors, crossing portals.  This is an adventure, you see, because you have all these rooms to explore, to live in if you like, and to make a part of your home.  But all rooms go dark from time to time.  What would life be like if we chose to just live in the rooms that are well lighted?  Would it be better?

There is a parable about a wealthy man who lived in a large mansion with many rooms.  At a certain point in his life when things were going well, he lived in all the rooms, but as time went by he started locking himself out of rooms that made him sad.  Say for instance, a loved one died in a certain room - he would lock the room and never go back.  Or maybe he did something stupid in a room, like strike a child out of anger, and he therefore shut down the room.  Toward the end of his life, this man was left wandering the hallways because he'd locked all his rooms, had shut himself out of life.

Life is not always better in well lighted areas.  I'm convinced that darkness is something we all need to deal with, and we can't lock ourselves out of rooms because they get dark for a while.  Darkness is not a place we want to live.  Once we leave it as new souls, we can't go back and live there again . . . but we can learn to take something from it.  We can't be afraid of it because we can't let our fear of dark places keep us away from the shaded areas, the penumbras.  That's an important thing, I think.  We would appreciate mountains less if it weren't for the valleys, and the same is true of light.  Without knowing the dark, the light is less important to us.

And in the beginning there was nothing but darkness all about . . . and there was also light beyond a portal we had not yet discovered.  Finding the light means opening doors, discovering lighted spaces to live but where the darkness is not that far away . . . and somewhere in between, in the shadows, we find the knowledge that makes life truly worthwhile.

PMC, 9/29/07