Showers in the Dark

The reason for taking my morning shower with the light off was that our bathroom is part of an addition to the house. Our home was built in 1957, a basic brick ranch house, with an addition from 1990 that includes a living room, screened porch, and master bedroom with a small bathroom.

The roof on the addition is flat, and it does not include an expansion of the attic. That means no ceiling fan in the bedroom and also nothing drawing the steam of the bathroom up and out. As a result, I sometimes open the bathroom window, which looks over our back yard.

So this morning, stepping into the shower about 5:30, I opened the window, and in an excess of caution, made sure the light was off. You'd have to work at it to see my silhouette in our bathroom, but still. 

Our house faces east; the bathroom, in the back, thus faces west. With the light off, the bathroom was still pretty dark. The shower was uneventful. Afterward, fully covered, I slid the window shut, and in doing so cut off the birdsong that we get routinely in our back yard. 

All of which got me reflecting on functioning in the dark and in the light. Barbara Brown Taylor, writing in her new book, Holy Envy, speaks of the encounter Nicodemus has with Jesus, by night, in the Gospel of John. She suggests that Jesus wants not to enlighten Nicodemus but to "endarken him."*

I use language of darkness and light, of fumbling around compared with moving easily and freely, frequently. Preached on it and probably will again. What happened when I engaged in a routine and intimate act - bathing - in the dark, with the window open, to birdsong?

I would not recommend the act to anyone with issues of balance and mobility. Don't try this at home, everyone. But as a small spiritual discipline, what happens if, on occasion, we take some routine act, from a morning cup of coffee or tea or water to brushing teeth, from hanging clothes in the closet to bagging up garbage ... without turning on the lights? Might we approach the "endarkenment" that Jesus seeks for a fellow teacher?

*Holy Envy, by Barbara Brown Taylor. 2019. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
The encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus is found in the Gospel of John, chapter 3.