BY CATRIONA MURRAY
POST TENEBRAS LUX I
normally
have
plans
for
Photo HA.com
Halloween. For the past few
Octobers I have been invited to speak about the supernatural world to local historical society audiences across Lewis. Last year, on the 31st, I was in Lochs, giving a talk on the second sight to an appreciative and well-informed group of folklore buffs. People are fascinated by the primitive beliefs of our forefathers. They are interested to hear how the Gaels of old lived in proximity to the Otherworld of witches, ghosts and fairies while often simultaneously professing a faith in God and the true spiritual realm. The supernatural world had a geography, an ethnography and a function all its own. Concepts which were either too difficult to understand, or too painful to come to terms with in the real world, were explained by reference to supernatural phenomena. Thus, infant disability was related to fairy changelings, and sudden illness or death might be attributed to witchcraft or the evil eye. There was a very present awareness of encroaching darkness, and of forces beyond themselves which intended harm to those they loved best. This personification of evil is not as infantile as we modern types care to believe. Indeed, any properly informed Christian knows that harm is not arbitrary and that, in our bleakest of circumstances, Satan is waiting to claim our souls for himself. So, we must allow that there was some merit in linking painful providence to a sentient agency outside of our control.
THE RECORD
Because I was born in the twentieth century rather than the sixteenth, I accepted that my widowhood was not brought about through ill-wishing, but by disease. Yet, after he died, my husband’s Macmillan nurse spoke about cancer to me like it was a person — an old enemy that she had grappled with for many years. Personifying the adversary makes sense, I think, precisely because of Satan. He isn’t the cartoon fellow with the horns and the trident; he is the malicious, malevolent force that inhabits darkness and death. I don’t know if he particularly enjoys inflicting pain, fear and grief for their own sake — it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he does — but I do know that he is very interested in what those sensations can drive us to. That is why our providences are of less consequence than the reactions they provoke. Our time in this world is of brief duration, and much more so when measured against the unfathomable eternity. Nonetheless, periods of pain and sorrow can make it seem like a protracted horror. One night can seem endless when we are mourning a loved one. I remember vividly my own reflections upon how long I might have to live without my husband, and was depressed at the thought of a ‘normal’ lifespan. It seemed too much to bear. And, of course, it was, taken all at once like that. God doesn’t ask us to take our sorrows like medicine, though. The enemy wants us to be overwhelmed and encourages thoughts of helplessness and despair. He
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wants to use providence against us, to drive a wedge between us and God, so that eventually we turn on our very Creator for what he has taken from us. This is the true force of darkness. It isn’t about ghosts and ghouls and things that go ‘bump’ in the night; it is about further warping our damaged relationship with God so we eventually become his accusers. Satan works on our fears and our griefs, and our sense of being hard done by. He encourages us to dwell on the slow drag of time in this world, so that we consider nothing in the light of eternity. When we do, however, get that light to see by, God shows us something very different. Once we are able to stop Satan’s propaganda, pouring despair into our hollowed-out hearts, we can focus on the still, small voice. What does God say to us in our fear and in our grief? Does he silence us, and tell us it is of no consequence? Will he dismiss it as a light, momentary affliction? Will he indulge our self-pity? Or defend himself against our bitter recriminations, when we remonstrate with him and ask, ‘why?’ He weeps with us. And he comes alongside us. If the night seems long, he will remind us of the joy that awaits the morning. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Satan wants me to dwell on God’s removal of what I loved best. Very well, Satan. But what have I loved more than my own sin? He has taken that too. Blessed be the name of the Lord. •
OCTOBER
