The shadow’s the thing ... shadows define the real. If I no longer see shadows as “dark marks,” as do the newly sighted, then I see them as making some sort of sense of the light. They give the light distance; they put it in its place. They inform my eyes of my location here, here O Israel, here in the world’s flawed sculpture, here in the flickering shade of the nothingness between me and the light. - Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (63)
Annie Dillard sees shadows. As she muses along Tinker Creek in Virginia, surveying all the familiar places, she is pulled towards the shadows. She lurks along, gazing out at anything and everything, looking for those shadows. She searches vigilantly because she knows that the shadows do not cast themselves. Rather, behind the shadows lies the life that casts them. No life, no shadow. Dillard describes a bird that drops almost to the ground when it suddenly spreads its wings and saves itself, like a plane in a deadly dive that pulls up just in time. Or perhaps the way the sun hits the trees at sunset, igniting a flaming forest. Also, the snake that sits by the creek, still, waiting her out like a living sculpture while she looks on in awe. These seemingly unamazing shadows point to life that is unseen, to life that lies beyond the shadows. These shadows reveal the bigness behind the smallness, the majesty behind the minutia of daily life. The shadows that are all around us in every inch of every place, speak to us every minute of every day, proclaiming at the top of their lungs that which we spend a lifetime seeking, the Divine. But what do these proclamations tell us? In these encounters with the Eternal, Dillard sees two paths that run parallel, like a road that suddenly forks.
Often these shadows lead to knowledge and trigger us to trust in the life that they reveal. As we lurk in our own familiar places, we also seek the shadows that Dillard speaks of. You know what I mean. You are lying on an open field, the moonlight pouring out its silvery sheen, and the grass crumbles beneath your weight, prickling your skin. Looking up at a clear sky, the stars stretch out endlessly before you, and you reach out to touch them. Suddenly you are lost. Any certainty of your place in this world melts away, and now you are a part of something bigger than yourself. You are overcome, and the buzz stays with you for a couple days. You notice things differently, seeing not only the minutia, but also the majesty. You realize that this world speaks not only its own language, but also the language of the One who created it. Along with Annie Dillard you “see that not only did the creator create everything, but that he is apt to create anything” (136). By studying the world, we find that we are studying the creator Himself. When we have these experiences, we realize that we can, in fact, know something about God. We know, for example, that He loves beauty (have you ever seen the perfect sunset?). That He loves variety (take a look at any documentary on sea life). That He loves extravagance! These shadows that we encounter reveal the light to us; they make sense of it. But these shadows also give the light distance.
Sometimes these shadows create uncertainty and fashion in us a fear of that unknown life that lies behind them. “Knowledge does not vanquish mystery, or obscure its distant lights” (244). While the minutia can proclaim what we can know, they can more easily proclaim what we cannot. One sunny afternoon, I went for a walk at the St. Louis Zoo. I was in the house where they kept the reptiles when I came upon a hungry snake. A mouse lay lifeless before him, inviting his vicious fangs. I sat and watched for over half an hour as the snake slowly devoured this mouse, which looked like a baseball in the snake’s throat. Is our fate any different from the mouse? Do we not also die, every last one of us, from the fangs of this world? Annie Dillard laments, “My pain and shock at the pain and death of individuals of my kind is the old, old mystery, as old as man, but forever fresh, and completely unanswerable” (181). While the shadows proclaim majesty, they often proclaim mystery. We search and probe, studying the things of this world, studying the minutia. Like Darwin we ask why. What is science but the search for answers? And yet the demand for answers only leads to more questions, questions that have no answer.
Thus the known and the unknown collide in the kaleidoscope of creation, and we are left somewhere in the middle. We are utterly pummeled by the twin contradiction of trust and fear. We become like King David, who, long before Annie Dillard, was encountered by the duality in the shadows. David looked up at the moon and the ancient stars, knowing that the Creator had placed them, and he too was encountered by the majesty and mystery of the Divine. He screamed out in praise and perplexity, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Thousands of years later, David continues to scream out in us as we search for answers. As the known and unknown intertwine into a ball of mess, we want to be the cat that wrestles the end to untangle it. In our attempt to untangle the ball of twine, we will often take any answer we can get.
But I wonder. Perhaps it is in this collision of known and unknown that humanity finds its place. Perhaps we are to exist in the shadows, drifting somewhere between majesty and madness. I wonder if we are meant to live in the middle, in this irresolvable tension. Like Annie Dillard, we wander through the ins and outs of Tinker Creek, with shadows all around us. Perhaps we should be more careful to look, to see them when they show up, to tune our ears and eyes to their frequency, because these shadows are screaming the most beautiful music. The shadows sing loudly to us the sweet melodies of majesty and mystery, knowledge and ignorance, trust and fear. Are we brave enough to hear both? Can we let the tension be? Can we like, David, be both praiseful and perplexed? Walking this tightrope requires unwavering faith in a God who knows what He is doing.
Suggested Prayer: Almighty and everlasting God, the works of your hands proclaim your glory throughout the heavens and the earth. But there is so much about you we do not understand. Help us, O Lord, in our struggle to know you, that we might rejoice in the shadows of your majesty, and be content in the shadows of your mystery. Above all, Heavenly Father, create in us an unwavering faith in your son, Jesus Christ, who is your perfect and ultimate revelation. Amen.