One Dark Night

by William Hart McNichols

Title

One Dark Night

Artist

William Hart McNichols

Medium

Painting - Acrylic On Wood

Description

One Dark Night (Steve and Kathy’s Norfolk Island Pine)
“John had a fascination for night-time which seems to have run in the family. His brother Francisco would sometimes be found outside in the fields late at night, lying beneath the starlit Castilian sky, arms stretched out in the form of a Cross. So, long after dark, the friars would come across John outside near the trees praying, or he would be leaning at his window looking into the dark.”
From “The Impact of God : Soundings From St John of the Cross”
by Carmelite, Fr Iain Matthew

My Father died 25 November 1997. In late December of that year I accompanied Daniel Berrigan, SJ to Northern Ireland. We arrived first in Dublin and stayed a night at a Jesuit residence. I remember sitting having drinks in a large room which had shelves of books. From my chair, across the room, I spotted the spine of a paperback book, which had a very small face on it that, to me, looked like St Bruno. Now, books on St Bruno are like hens teeth, so I jumped up and pulled out the book and found “The Impact of God” by the Carmelite, Fr Iain Matthew.
By that time, everyone in the room was looking at me as if I’d temporarily lost it. I asked the house superior, who was also staring at me, “Can I have this ?” And he said, “What is it ?” When I told him it was a book about John of the Cross, he replied, “Oh yes, Bill, sure, take it.”
People talk about books saving their lives or changing their lives. I read this book all through Northern Ireland, and even in Belfast on New Year’s Eve, as the helicopters passed loudly, ominously, over the Jesuit house we were staying in, during the “Troubles” when no one was sure what might happen that night, or any of the nights after; and we got very little sleep.

Today, hearing reports about Gaza and Ukraine and what they experience daily I cannot even imagine what life is like for them.
Just weeks ago, Republican state representative, Ben Baker and his wife Naomi, lost their daughter and her husband, they were attacked by gangs and murdered in Haiti. Ben said, “My heart is broken in a thousand pieces. I’ve never felt this kind of pain.” Now, I don’t agree with almost anything about Ben Baker’s politics nor would he probably want to have anything to do with me, but I was so moved by his pain that I’ve been praying for his family everyday.
When someone says, my heart is broken in a thousand pieces…we can all empathize.

In our new book, Chris Pramuk and I converse about how our own wounds of either discrimination, blatant injustice, family fractures, willful psychic or bodily violation, are capable of bringing us into the pain of the lives of people we are led to meet, or those we have never met. This conversation takes place in much of the book, but specifically in Chapter 8, “The Flowering Wounds.”

In November of 2012 (just 7 months after my heart collapse) I was sitting outside in the dark night, at my brother’s house in Monterey, California. Because there was some moon light, I could vividly see their huge, huge, Norfolk Island Pine tree silhouetted against the starlit sky.
I’d had a few small potted Norfolk Pine trees in my apartment in Manhattan, that I’d wrap with red chili lights every Advent, many, many years ago; but…
I was overwhelmed by the size of this huge tree and its nighttime beauty. I took a poor photo and when I returned home, I decided to paint it for Steve and Kathy…
And for St John of the Cross who loved looking out his window into the night.

Here I must mention that the seraphic Franciscan singer, John Michael Talbot recorded this poem, “One Dark Night” by San Juan, and whenever I think of it, I hear him singing. It’s a magnificent recording, so sparse, so lovely, so haunting. (You can find and listen to this on you tube).

“…Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart… O night that guided me, O night more lovely than the dawn, O night that joined Beloved with Lover … I remained lost in oblivion…”
San Juan de la Cruz

John clearly says the light that guided him was his love which burned within his heart. This love scripture tells us, was put inside John by God, and led him to God.

People are always talking about these dark times, and today 12 June, is Annelies Marie Frank’s birthday. Recently I listened to her diary which changed the world. It was read by Selma Blair, and is especially poignant, because Selma has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and knows something about surviving - of this, I’m certain. Anne is most famous for her shockingly hopeful words that :
“Despite everything, I believe people are really good at heart.”

Does it take a super-human consciousness to find the good in people ?
Because of the gradual breakdown of civility, manners, or as the Buddhists say, some “Random acts of kindness” I’d say it definitely takes more work than it did before 2016. But Anne died just before liberation in February or March of 1945.
So it’s not that our world changed in 2016, it went backwards.
Anne’s light was also in her heart, and in Melissa Raphael’s absolutely unique book, “The Female Face of God in Auschwitz : A Jewish Feminist Theology of the Holocaust “ about women’s behavior in the Holocaust, unlike men’s accounts, she sees women bonding together in the most degrading and truly horrific circumstances. Viktor Frankl famously said about his concentration camp experience :
“The best of us did not survive.”
Those words have haunted me for years.

Let me end with a beautiful quote by another extraordinary man who empowers us with his view…it’s about lighting the light in another…

“At times our own light goes out and is
rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude
of those who have lighted the flame
within us.”
Albert Schweitzer

“There’s a wisdom in the teaching of
the old familiar songs, and a sorrow in repeating
all the old familiar wrongs, and a lesson to be
learned though I’ve known all along,
Lover am I coming home again.
Light a light, light a light for me,
Light a light light a light for me,
Bring me back home again,
Bring me back home again.”
Janis Ian, 1974

Fr William Hart McNichols ♨️ June 2024

Uploaded

June 13th, 2024

Colors

Embed

Share

Tags