February 3, 2012
Taking the Time to Make a Difference
An experience of darkness and light
BY PAUL R. LEINGANG
We were in total darkness.
That’s hard to find these days, but in my youthful days spent exploring caves, darkness was a readily available commodity.
A high school teacher was our organizer in those days as we crawled, climbed and waded through underground passageways in southern Illinois, northern Arkansas and the Missouri Ozarks.
Every new companion on one of these spelunking trips had to be educated about the darkness. I know from my books that darkness is the absence of light, but my experience tells me otherwise.
Darkness in a cave is palpable. It is a presence, not just an absence of light. That’s not scientific reality, that’s cave reality.
We always carried three forms of light, for safety’s sake. Flashlights and candles were the standbys. We used carbide lights as our primary source back then — miners’ lights which had two chambers, the top one allowing water to drip slowly on calcium carbide in a lower chamber, producing a chemical reaction that generated acetlylene gas. The gas flare was routed to a nozzle in the center of a shiny metal reflector, and the flame provided quite a bit of light.
One event I remember clearly was the day our leader wanted to take a photograph of a large underground chamber with many beautiful formations.
He set up his film camera on a tripod, and we turned off all of our lights. Then he opened the lens and kept it open as he walked around the chamber popping flashbulbs in half-dozen locations. To get from one location to another, he held a flashlight at his side, covered with his fingers with just enough light at his feet.
The resulting image was developed and was somewhat of a success. It showed a large dark area, with a half-dozen brightly lit spots, showing stalagtites and stalagmites. The developed image also showed a dim line of red — the handheld and almost hidden flashlight which traced the path the photographer had taken. It was a line gently moving up and down, mostly — except for one area where the line of the light dropped several feet and angled up again. That’s where the photographer had fallen down. His path was clearly marked in the picture, even though he himself was not visible.
The printed picture revealed his successes and his brief failing.
* * *
What brought this memory back from long ago was a document recently released by Pope Benedict XVI in preparation for World Mission Day in October.
The theme of the document is: “Called to radiate the word of truth.”
My cave story describes the difficulty of bringing light into a world of darkness. To make the comparison bluntly, our good efforts to bring light do more than show off what is around us; they reveal something of our own journey — and occasionally, our own failings.
* * *
Later this year, the Church will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of a document released by the Second Vatican Council, “Ad gentes.” This is a document that encourages us to work so that Gospel may reach the ends of the earth.
The Vatican Information Service quoted Pope Benedict XVI, who called for renewing our faith and promoting a new evangelization.
“Faith is a gift that was given to us to be shared,” Pope Benedict said. “It is the most important gift of our lives and we cannot keep it to ourselves.”
* * *
Who are the people who brought the light of Christ into your life? Perhaps your parents. A teacher. A parish pastor. A son or a daughter who brought new light and enthusiasm into a world tired and dark.
Jesus as the one source of divine light may be central in our lives, but I know for me that the lesser lights of those around me are also important. When faith trembles, the small steady light of others in the community gives me better footing on my own journey.
Faith is a gift that was given to us to be shared — and we are called to bring light to others even as we acknowledge the possibility that we will at times stumble and fall.
Just remember: All will be revealed.
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