The Bent Witness and In the Darkness with a Candle

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I cannot evangelize you, my sweet Lord, because I am broken. When an advertisement appears on TV, the models are always young and strong and beautiful. They are not allowed to sell a product unless they appear to be sound.

But I am bent over inside and my soul, considered in itself, is not a pretty sight. How can I “sell” you, my sweet one, when I myself am so ugly?

Now it is true that you hate advertising and therefore want me to witness in a different way.

But don’t I need to be healed first? Doesn’t my body need to witness what you can do? Doesn’t your power need to be seen in me?

Or is it that this breaking of me, this humiliation and the way I am knocked to the ground, is it that this is the witness of your love and your wisdom?

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IN THE DARKNESS WITH A CANDLE

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Here is how the kneading of Dave's relation with the Lord would act itself out in reality. To begin with, he found deepest intimacy with God only when he was alone, in a room without windows. In the darkness with a candle. Withdrawn from all women and men. In solitude so deep that it was beneath any loneliness. Yes but in the solitude what did he find? What it contained was the command to go into the community.

But you couldn’t *be* in community without going through here first. Community only existed on the far side of your withdrawal into God.

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