The Wonder Report: March 5, 2021

Hope for the Middle Level

Mar 06, 2021

Happy Friday! I’m so glad we could be together again in this space.

This week, I have a confession to make: I’ve always been afraid of the dark.

When I was a young child, I never had to face the dark of night alone. Though I had my own room on the first floor of our two-story house, I only slept there during the day for naps. At night, I slept on the bottom bunk of my brother’s bunk bed in his upstairs bedroom next to our parents’ room.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t still afraid: many nights I’d awake to only the faint glow of our nightlight and carefully make my way to my parents’ room. Occasionally they’d let me climb in bed with them, but usually my mom made a pallet on the floor next to her. She’d reach down and hold my hand until I was asleep again. On rare occasions, Mom would walk me back to my bunk bed and crawl in with me until I was asleep again. By the time I woke again, it was light.

When we moved to a new three-level house when I was 8, my parents decided it was time for me to sleep in my own room. Gerry slept in the second story loft, my parents slept in the first story master, and I slept in a corner room of the basement. With no windows, my room was darker than ever, but my parents agreed to leave the hallway light on for me. If I woke up in the night, I still made my way to their room, feeling my way around the basement and up the wood-paneled stair case. But as I got older, even the pallet on the floor became a luxury, as usually they would march me back to bed and threaten me with extra chores for getting up again.

Briefly after my parents divorced, my mom allowed me to sleep with her if I woke in the night, but once my step-dad moved in, I was forced to stay by myself in the dark, even if I was scared. He wasn’t an unkind man; he just had boundaries for his bedroom that didn’t include his step-daughter. He also thought a 12-year-old ought to be able to sleep in her own room through the night.

Thankfully, Mom convinced him to leave the hall-light on.

In many ways, I’m still afraid of the dark.

Noises I might ignore during the day become occasions for my wild imagination to assume the worst at night. I don’t like to drive in the dark for fear an animal might run out in front of me or I’ll be stranded alone if the car breaks down. While my husband often heads out for a walk with the dogs in the late evenings, I refuse to leave the house by myself after the first signs of dusk. And though I no longer sleep with a nightlight in our room, I am grateful for the streetlamp next to our house and the ambient light from the neighbor’s porch that allows me to find my way to the bathroom when I wake in the night.

Mostly, the old fears and anxieties that came to life in the darkness of my youth still haunt me when the lights go down and it’s time for sleep. Steve’s head barely hits the pillow before he’s quietly snoring next to me most nights, whereas I lie awake for hours, trying to convince myself that all the things that could happen in the dark probably won’t. At least not tonight.

In Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep, Tish Harrison Warren writes about the ancient practice of nighttime prayers, or Compline. She says that this prayer service, especially designed for the final hours of the day, was established during an time when the world was “without electric light, a world lit dimly by torch or candle, a world full of shadows lurking with unseen terrors, a world in which no one could be summoned when a thief broke in and no ambulance could be called, a world where wild animals hid in the darkness, where demons and ghosts and other creatures of the night were living possibilities for everyone.”

Our world is different now, of course. In addition to the ambient light of our city, which allows us to see at least a few feet in front of us on even the darkest nights, the only wild animal I fear is Tilly my black Lab, who sleeps in the hallway where I might trip over her.

But even with all the modern conveniences that allows life to carry on as late into the day as we can stay up for, “we nonetheless face our vulnerability in a unique way as darkness falls,” Warren writes.

“Night is not just hours on the clock. How many of us like awake at night, unable to fall back asleep, worrying over the day ahead, thinking of all that could go wrong, counting our sorrows?”

I recently read The Celtic Way of Evangelism by George C. Hunter III, about the Celtic evangelism movement in the 4th and 5th centuries. There were many reasons that so many people converted to Christianity through the Celtic influence, but I was fascinated by one particular point the author made: "Celtic Christianity addressed a 'zone' of human concern that Western Christianity, and other world religions have ignored."

They call this the "middle" level. The bottom level is the world of the senses, things that science can explain. The top level deals with ultimate issues—origin, purpose, destiny—things that most religions try to address. But the neglected middle deals with "the questions of the uncertainty of the near future, the crises of present life, and the unknowns of the past."

I think the past year of pandemic living has been a pretty good indicator that we're still not so good at this middle level, despite the fact that it "drives people's lives most of the time."

One way the Celts dealt with the middle level was to devote prayers and blessings to the issues people were facing, to "help common people to live and cope as Christians day by day in the face of poverty, enemies, evil forces, nature's uncertainties, and frequent threats from many quarters." These prayers and blessings, which many memorized, directed their hearts "moment by moment, setting by setting."

Recently, before I even pre-ordered Warren’s new book, I began praying the ancient liturgy of Compline myself before bed as a way to seek God in the dark hours that I normally fill with worry. Now, as I bow my head in bed each evening and ask the Lord to “grant us a peaceful night,” as I cry out to him to “protect us through the hours of this night,” as I remind him that his “unfailing providence sustains the world we live in and the life we live,” I’ve realized that Compline is a liturgy for the middle level, for the uncertainties that feel even more uncertain in the dark, for the crises of the present life that keep us awake and filled with worry.

Which means that Warren’s book, filled with the prayers and promises of Compline, is itself a resource for this middle level, a resource I so desperately need in this season.

So, for the month of March (and the duration of Lent), as I continue to read Prayer in the Night, I plan to commit this space, as well as Instagram, to the middle level, to prayers and blessings and reflections that will help me root myself in God's providence, love, and mercy during the uncertainties and threats that endanger my own daily life. My hope is to create a "playbook," of sorts, for the issues that we all struggle with on a moment by moment basis.

I wonder … how are you confronting middle level issues in your own life right now? Do you have the resources you need to face them with faith? What are those resources? What are you lacking?

Even 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

Wonder Challenge

Are you afraid of the dark?

Maybe not like the childhood version of me, who couldn’t even sleep in her own room for fear of what the dark might bring. But maybe more like the grownup version of me, who has trouble sleeping at night because of the way darkness forces me to “face my vulnerability in a unique way.” Do you struggle in this way, too?

Here’s the challenge: Try praying Compline (here’s the version I use from the Anglican Church of North America … scroll down under Daily Office). It’s not a magic formula, and if you aren’t used to praying written prayers, it may be uncomfortable at first. But begin by simply reading the liturgy. And then try reading it before you go to bed one night. And then begin to fold the language and poetry into your own prayers, asking God to meet you in the middle level of your life.

This and That

Here are a few articles, essays, and more to give you hope, to make you think, to grow your faith, and as always, to help root you in love.

The 'Coronasomnia' Phenomenon Keeping You from Getting Sleep by Bryan Lufkin for the BBC. If nighttime has felt scarier and sleep more problematic than usual over the past year, you’re not alone. Sleep issues have risen dramatically around the world as the COVID-19 pandemic continues into year two, with social distancing that has “rocked our daily routines,” non-existent work-life boundaries, and “ongoing uncertainty in our lives.”
From the article: “That so many of us are currently experiencing sleeplessness comes down to the current configuration of challenging, ‘almost Biblical’ circumstances, says Dr Steven Altchuler, a psychiatrist and neurologist who specialises in sleep medicine at the Mayo Clinic, one of the US’s largest medical research organisations. ‘If you’re having insomnia, you’re in good company – much of the world is, too. It’s a consequence of all the changes we’re experiencing in Covid,’ he says.”
Till Kingdom Come: How Grieving Is an Essential Part of Living by Stephanie Phillips for Mockingbird. I love this moving essay about the important role of grief in our lives … even if the deaths we are grieving are not the deaths of people. Grief is also a recurring theme in Prayer in the Night. Though grief often touches on the higher level issues of death and purpose, it’s the practice of ongoing, “routine” grief which makes this essay another great resource for dealing with life’s middle level.
From the essay: “Grief makes us pay attention. It stops us in our tracks — our Westernized, frantic tracks — and removes the veil between us and a deeper reality. The reality is that death is an unavoidable part of life; not just the death that ends our lives here on earth, but the deaths of broken dreams, of seamless transitions (what are goodbyes if not a result of The Fall?!), of unmet expectations. I believe more than ever that God is in the space occupied by grief; that he meets us there, sits with us there, makes us more like him there. It is a brutal form of love, but not a lesser one.”

More from The Wonder Report

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Visually Speaking

In this section, I'll highlight visual and performing artists and talk about how their work inspires mine. I'd love to hear about artists you love and whose work you admire.

This painting, “Jesus Carried up to a Pinnacle of the Temple,” is the third of a four-part series of Jesus’ desert wanderings from French painter James Tissot. Two weeks ago, we examined “Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness.” Last week, we covered “Jesus Transported by a Spirit onto a High Mountain.” And next week we’ll become acquainted with “Jesus Ministered to by Angels.”

Jesus Carried up to a Pinnacle of the Temple (Jésus porté sur le pinacle du Temple), by James Tissot - Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2006.

All four of these paintings are part of Tissot’s epic The Life of Christ, a set of 350 watercolors, which according to the Brooklyn Museum, earned him comparisons to William Blake because of “his naturalistic style” which “coexists with a decidedly mystical or hallucinatory one.”

After Tissot exhibited the completed series in London and in several U.S. cities, the painter John Singer Sargent urged A. Augustus Healy, then president of the Brooklyn Museum’s board of trustees, to purchase the series for the young institution. The same year, a public subscription campaign to acquire the works was inaugurated and the Museum bought Tissot’s religious tour de force for the then very high price of $60,000. [based on information on the Brooklyn Museum website]

Writer’s Notebook

One of my greatest joys is to encourage writers as they hone their craft, develop their voice, and live a meaningful writing life. Here are some tips, insights, prompts, and more to help you as you write.

In a brilliant essay published at LitHub this week, novelist Sara Davis writes about Dealing with Chronic Pain While Being a Writer.

Throughout the story, she writes about all the different kinds of advice she received from people as she sought treatment for an unexplained hip condition. After seeing various kinds of healthcare practitioners, she’s referred to Edward, “who practiced a form of Japanese bodywork derived from a modality called ‘anma,’ a treatment, Wikipedia helpfully explained, for which there was no medical evidence of effectiveness.”

During her initial meeting with Edward, after asking her questions about her job and her “life’s work,” he ultimately diagnosed her problem as writing: “One of my meridians was blocked. My creative energy was unable to flow. Finish my book and I would heal my pain.”

After several treatments, some degree of pain relief (though not fully), and a completed (and published!) book, Davis doesn’t believe Edward was completely right in his diagnosis. But she does think that “had the pain not entered my life at the moment it did, I might never have finished.”

As writers, we often see the the challenges of life—especially the challenges of life’s middle level—as impediments to our writing life, as things that keep us from the work and prevent us from living more creatively.

I wonder what would happened if instead, we saw our own “chronic pain” as a gift to our writerly selves, and if instead of fearing the pain in our lives, we became “familiar with [it], the way you might feel about a grocery store that you don’t love but that you’ve been to a lot of times, so you know where everything is.”

Well, you’ve come to the end of another Wonder Report! Thanks again for sharing this journey with me. As always, you can hit reply and end up in my inbox. Or you can also leave a comment on this newsletter which will live in the archive over on Substack. It’s one of my favorite features of this platform.

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