We sang our Taize, and the small candles around us
flickered into the mist-dark of the medieval nave.
Where we sang, great pillars soared upwards
to disappear into arches of black velvet. And I felt
how the uncertain light of our candles
had made the great church both smaller and larger;
our little patch of light became a room,
a simple choral cell in which to sit,
we holy few, come together to sing
only for ourselves and for our God;
while beyond our candles the dark
had become a vast and cavernous chamber,
our few lit pillars just the small beginning
of an endless colonnade; and the starless roof above us
had been raised as high as any stars could fly.
We are afraid in the dark, and
perhaps we are afraid of the dark, for
only our small pool of light is safe and known,
this little space that we call life,
in which the old shapeless primeval dark
is pushed back a little way, and for a little while,
for a moment in time before the great tide of
darkness
rolls back in. Our little light is itself defined
by shadow, threatened by shadow too.
But I shall continue to believe
and to sing of the light without shadow,
light beyond shadow, love beyond fear,
light that is there in those dark places, and
has already conquered them. And if
as yet we do not see it, the fault is
in our own sight, not in the light.
Sometimes, perhaps, our singing may touch it,
or open the way for that light to touch us,
to flame in our hearts. And this I believed
that night: the one and true light
is unquenchable and is all-conquering,
and in him there can be no darkness at all.
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