Light and dark...

There are a lot of mosquitoes here. One of the best ways of not attracting them at night is to keep all the lights off. It is very dark here without any light... no, really! I keep thinking, '"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." ...And then it went off again.' 

One of the things about it being very very dark here at night is all the other bugs, - apart from mosquitoes! I trod on a slug last week. We sometimes had slug-truders in Norfolk, yellowish, translucent, with green stripes. This was a big black woodland one. Interestingly, less slimy to the foot than those others, but big. Really big. I imagine that by autumn there may be a river of slugs in the corridor, slipping under the front door, cutting me off from the kitchen and the loo, clamouring at the bedroom door, bursting under it and coming in through the window. The dark is like that. It exaggerates and summons up bad thoughts. 

Another time I staggered to the bathroom in the dark, hands outstretched. I found the lightswitch and a shaft of light suddenly fell across my path, something big with multiple digits scuttled away from the light and lay nightmarishly in wait just on the edge of the illuminated patch. On the way back to bed I plucked up the courage to take a closer look, now that my eyes had adjusted to the dim light, It was a centipede. 

It's not just the bugs, last night it was real nightmares, nightmares which included my children. 

Fortunately I know the cure for nightmares. 

In fact I would say that nightmares, when they come round, are usually my personal invitation to get back to it. 

Praying the rosary, of course. 

I have a line in my head, perhaps one of the motivational quotes from our parish newsletter once: "If you want to get to know Jesus, pray the rosary." it might have been Fulton Sheen.   

Jesus went through the real-life nightmare. Real saddistic torture at the hands of the state. The state which fundamentally is entrusted with it's peoples' safety, having something like a paternal responsibility for them. 

In so suffering Jesus puts himself with the real vicitms of torture and abuse, and his mother, Our Lady, stands with those who have to watch as someone they love is wrenched apart. 

And we can get to know all about that divine presence with us, in our sufferings, by meditating on the mysteries of the the rosary. The rosary is how I get to sleep when I otherwise can't. It's a reality check when my thoughts are spiralling. Or sometimes it's an invitation to sit and rest in the arms of a Father and a King who is Good.

"The rosary leads us to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love." JP2 

The people who walked in darkness have indeed seen a great light.