The Face of Earth Entomb

“Any yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp. Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame, that darkness does the face of earth entomb, when living light should kiss it?” Macbeth, Act II, Scene 4. Spoken by Ross.

What to do when darkness envelopes the land, when the day is night and the night is blacker than black? What to do when the land is kissed not by light but by darkness? When the sun rises the night reaches forth its tentacles to strangle it, lest it should reveal deeds of darkness, the works of the abyss. A curtain of blindness, we dance and play in the dark and think it is light – it is so long since we’ve seen the sun that we have forgotten what the light of light looks like, our eyes have adjusted to dimness first, then blackness. So accustomed are we to darkness that we no longer need light to see.

“Then Jesus spoke to them again saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12)