4. Afraid of the Dark

"In the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them walking on the sea. But when
the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified and said it: It is a
ghost! And they cried out in fear." Matthew 14:25-26

In the room where I lay down to sleep as a little boy there was a closet, the door of which was never closed. When the lights went out I became convinced my hanging clothes were

actually monsters, waiting for me to close my eyes. Turn on the lights again and my fear melted away, but in the dark my imagination defined reality. Most of us probably remember this experience from childhood but it isn't purely a childish phenomenon. In the dark of the

night alone on still black water, fear and imagination dominated the disciples' mind such that for a moment the familiar form of the master became strange and terrible to them. In the same way physical darkness leads to fear which distorts our perception physical things, spiritual darkness, the absence of the light of Christ in our hearts distorts our perception of

spiritual things. Confession, repentance, the services of the Church, the fruits of the Spirit,

all seem strange or even monstrous to us from such a vantage. In just this way, the light shines in the darkness, as the Gospel of John says, but the darkness does not comprehend it.

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