by Barbara Brown Taylor
HarperOne, San Francisco, Calif. 200 pages
Reviewed by MaryAnn McKibben-Dana
When I mentioned to a friend that I was reviewing the latest book by Barbara Brown Taylor, she wrinkled her nose and said, “I picked it up in the bookstore and couldn’t bring myself to buy it. It seemed like it would be too depressing.” With a title like “Learning to Walk in the Dark,” her worry is understandable. People may be forgiven for their concerns that the book will be a chronicle of human misery, but nothing could be further from the truth — to the book’s benefit, and perhaps a small bit to its detriment.
The writing is as flawless as we’ve come to expect from “BBT,” as she’s often called — and usually by people who have no claims of familiarity. We feel like we know her, though, because her work strikes at the very heart of us. In this book, Taylor seamlessly guides us through the worlds of theology, science, Scripture, poetry and personal experience. Here she makes a compelling case for reclaiming darkness, not as a condition to be avoided (whenever possible) or grimly endured (whenever it’s not). Instead, darkness is an inevitability of life, with its own gifts and wisdom to offer us — especially if we can rely on our other senses to guide us. Taylor critiques the so-called “full solar spirituality” that is offered in too many of our churches. She reminds us that Jesus was born in the hushed darkness of a cave and rose from the dead in a different one. Yet “from earliest times, Christians have used ‘darkness’ as a synonym for sin, ignorance, spiritual blindness, and death.”
Taylor fleshes out her thesis with a series of investigations both spiritual and incarnational. She gets a taste of sightlessness through an art exhibit, in which visually impaired docents shepherd the guests through rooms filled with wonders and obstacles alike. She goes caving with expert guides, spending uncounted hours in a darkness that’s as existential as it is physical. She leaves the comforts and technologies of home and spends a night alone in a cabin in the woods. What happens there left me as chilled as any horror movie … maybe more so, because we’re talking about the terrors of the heart, which can be more frightening than any bogeyman Hollywood conjures up.
These experiences work as pilgrimages rather than mere tourism because of the depth of reflection Taylor brings. After watching the moon rise with her husband Ed, the two realize it’s been twenty years since they’ve intentionally done this, and only this, together. Why has it been so long? “The answer makes me so sad that I cannot say it out loud. We have been busy. For twenty years.”
Taylor is right in diagnosing our culture’s allergy toward ambiguity, discomfort and pain, and solar spirituality reigns in too many corners of Christianity. Yet there are darknesses in our world that are so unspeakable, so unacceptable, that the faithful response is not to befriend it, but to rage against the dying of the light. Taylor would surely agree. But people seeking an exploration of darkness that encompasses a tsunami, Newtown or 300 disappeared Nigerian schoolgirls may need to keep searching. This is not a book about theodicy. It is a book about being awake, patient and curious — whether we are engulfed in darkness or bathed in light.
MARYANN MCKIBBEN-DANA is the pastor of Idylwood Presbyterian Church in Falls Church, Virgina.
