Sacred and Formative Darkness (Guest Speaker: Bradley Onishi)
1 John 1:5
Dr. Bradley B. Onishi is a former Friends leader and the award-winning author of Preparing for War. He founded the Straight White American Jesus (SWAJ) podcast, Axis Mundi Media, and the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement.
Onishi is a Research Associate at the U.C. Berkeley Center for Religion and a member of the Committee on the Public Understanding at the American Academy of Religion. He often writes for outlets like Rolling Stone, Politico, and the New York Times, and appears regularly on MSNnow.
I John 1:5 (NRSV):
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
“You will say, [in the Bible] Christ says this, and the apostles say that; but what can you say? Are you a child of Light? Have you walked in the Light, and what you speak, is it inwardly from God?. . .” - George Fox
Queries:
What are the ways we discipline ourselves individually and communally to enter darkness - practices in which we shun the maddening illumination of everyday life in favor of going to the place where we can contemplate and encounter the inner light?
How does such discipline prevent us from the false vision of the world as a disenchanted, masterable, nihilistic entity that is given over to craven men?
Finally, the notion from the third-century mystical theologian Gregory of Nyssa of Epektasis: implies that true joy in spiritual living is found in the process of spiritual growth and development individually and communally. How do we engage the world as those living between despair and false certainty?