In the Beginning
Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You. Psalm 139:12 NASB
Alike to You– Well, not exactly. You see, the Hebrew construction doesn’t actually contain the words “alike to You.” They have been added in order to parallel the opening phrase. The Hebrew literally reads, “like the darkness like the light.” Of course, the implication is that darkness and light are the same to God, but the Hebrew is sparse. It asks the reader to fill in the meaning. And it does something else. It pushes the reader back to the beginning.
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
The Psalmist paints a picture of personal creation. We were formless and void. Tōhû va- bōhû. Not exactly “formless and void.” More like “filled with confusion and emptiness—a primordial condition of waste and desolation.” In that place, ḥōšek, darkness—our personal primeval darkness, the condition of inner confusion when we not only don’t know our way, we don’t know ourselves. Chaos reigns. Bewilderment confounds. We are lost in the swampland of the soul. And in this place, the “deep” is our reality. Tĕhôm, the primal sea of chaos, so familiar to Egyptian cosmology, asserts its desire to rule our lives. We skirt the edge of its grasp by fighting for order, but it can never be defeated with lists of rules. As Camille Paglia notes: “Civilized man conceals from himself the extent of his subordination to nature. The grandeur of culture, the consolation of religion absorb his attention and win his faith. But let nature shrug, and all is in ruin.”[1] She elaborates:
Science is a method of logical analysis of nature’s operations. It has lessened human anxiety about the cosmos by demonstrating the materiality of nature’s forces, and their frequent predictability. But science is always playing catch-up ball. Nature breaks its own rules whenever it wants. Science cannot avert a single thunderbolt. Western science is a product of the Apollonian mind: its hope is that by naming and classification, by the cold light of intellect, archaic might can be pushed back and defeated. Name and person are part of the west’s quest for form. The west insists on the discrete identity of objects. To name is to know; to know is to control. . . . the west’s greatness arises from this delusional certitude. Far Eastern culture has never striven against nature in this way. Compliance, not confrontation is its rule.[2]
The Hebrew poet from the tenth century BCE asserts the same conflict, not only between Nature and Man but also inside our private worlds of consciousness. Formless, void, dark and deep are all frightening words for those of us trapped in the cave of self-consciousness even if the One sitting beside us knows no restrictions about day and night. But the comfort that should come from this insight will only be meaningful if we trust Him. Otherwise, the world is a terrifying place of catastrophic probability. There is no place to hide in the dark.
Topical Index: alike to You, dark, tōhû va- bōhû, tĕhôm, void, chaos, Genesis 1:2, Psalm 139:12
[1]Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickenson, p. 1.
God knows. Man surmises.
The only advance man has is the faith
given him about what God knows.
All else is folly, even the grandest buildings
and highest technologies Babylon has to offer.
This world was designed for a time.
Man’s only hope is to know the Designer . . .
while there’s still time.
That was sublime, Rich.
In the book, The Body Has A Mind Of It’s Own, the point is made that our sense of not only self, but of reality, is built out of “body maps” which are sensual feedback loops built on experience. These maps not only chart the body proper, such as “body surface, it’s musculature, it’s intention, it’s potential for action (but even provide) a map that automatically tracks and emulates the actions and intentions of other people around you.” These sensory-defined experiences “are your mind’s true foundation”. “Memory is rooted in agency (the ability to act and choose), and agency depends on embodiment. In fact, this is all a hard-won lesson that the artificial intelligence community has finally begun to grasp…In real life there is no such thing as disembodied consciousness”.
Experiments with animals that are exposed to visual data, but allowed no corresponding experience with what they see have proven that “it’s brain will never learn what any of that visual information is supposed to mean”. It would be “effectively blind for life”. This is profound when you go back and read what Yeshua could have meant when He said that folks are never so blind as “those who will not see”. Could He have been referring to folks who are attempting to bypass experience and gain esoteric ‘light’ (knowledge)?
The West has attempted to gain knowledge without experience, or, connection (love), but without experience, light itself is effectively darkness. Without the experience of the love that connects us, we have no way to perceive not only our self, but all else, too. However, with that connection, visual data is only confirmation of what we already know (have experienced). The light or the dark at that point make no difference to what we already know to be true.
Apparently eating from the Tree of Experience has mandated that we learn the truth regardless of what seems to be the case (visual data?) by forcing us to learn how to navigate in the dark.
Skip, Many times over the past 8 years your words have struck my soul, but none have pierced more deeply or more accurately described my life than these words you penned today: “Tōhû va- bōhû. Not exactly “formless and void.” More like “filled with confusion and emptiness—a primordial condition of waste and desolation.” In that place, ḥōšek, darkness—our personal primeval darkness, the condition of inner confusion when we not only don’t know our way, we don’t know ourselves. Chaos reigns. Bewilderment confounds. We are lost in the swampland of the soul.”
So until the Spirit comes to hover and brood over me, when someone asks me “who are you?” I can honestly say “Tōhû va- bōhû”. The Greeks taught that “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” If indeed we have our genesis in Genesis 1:1 then I have an accurate ‘word picture’ of myself in verse 2… “Tōhû va- bōhû”.
A good place to begin…again.
“And this is the simple truth—that to live is to feel oneself lost—he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked.”
“There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.” Rabbi Mendel of Kotsk