Matthew Lyle Landsman

Recently, I visited a park on the Snake River about forty miles from my home. I went to the campground to visit old friends from my teens, when I lived in the country in the green side of Oregon. I descended on the lot of them just after dinner time, in the heat of an Eastern Washington evening in mid-August. After I located their campsites, I returned to the parking lot where I left my car and walked back to join the familiar array of vacationers…a spot about a quarter mile from the parking lot.

It was a good visit with old friends…food and cool water to drink, a very pink sunset (thanks to wildfires in the desert)…and a campfire to visit around till it was nearly time the park gates were to close and lock; hastening my departure and another forty mile drive home under the stars.

Normally I ride my motorcycle to the camp spot and can park it nearby, leaving me with a headlamp and a simple departure no matter the depth of desert darkness that accompanies zero effect from city lights and no surrounding homes. But on this night, without a flashlight or even a visible moon, I was left out in “country dark”. In other words, it was as dark as a night can be under clear skies with trees and wilderness as far as the eye can see.

There was a narrow paved roadway I had walked in late evening light…with trees fringing the park and grass on either side of the modest roadway. That night there was no visible moon. Stars were partially hidden by trees. My feet and hands were not visible to my eyes. It was country dark. In that sort of darkness, I am aware the roadway still exists, that my hands still grace my wrists, and feet follow the ankles. That everything existing in the light still stands in the darkness. That fir and fawn will still be as they were at twilight, come the dawn.

I recalled such country dark walks I took when I was first getting to know these high school friends in Oregon. I had to hold out my arm to know I wasn’t about to drift off into blackberry bush and brambles there at either side of the gravel road I trod back when…between the house of a neighbor and mine about a quarter of a mile apart. At night in rural western Oregon, one (still) finds country dark and a lot of gravel roads lined by tall timber and covered by a small dark sky. At the ages of fourteen and fifteen, a young guy is filled with bravado and a need to demonstrate bravery and an omniscient air. It is a rite of passage to set out into the night with keen young eyes, a steady stride, and a sense of purpose. Oh, I forgot, and bellbottom jeans wet up past the ankle.

Country dark on a moonless night. A knowledge that what is there during the day will still be there at night. There is life that occurs after dark and is lit by artificial sources. But real life has to include an occasional trek without much more than memory and the senses. One can choose to remain indoors, safe and dry and assured. But some moments find us having to set out in times of need, of dire circumstances, of real life calling one to leave the safety and comfort of proverbial home. Sometimes we are asked to go where we haven’t, to walk on unbroken places with no paths, and too, over broken roads. In times of illness, of injury, of a soul in harm’s way. Asked to embark out into metaphoric country dark and answer to a selfless need and deed for the greater good. And we bring our own internal light, provided by courage, dedication, reflex, and a true need to do what is right.

How does one explain such a rising to the occasion with no prior experience at such a calling? How do we justify setting out with no certain plan, no real end game, no idea what to do when we arrive. Life provides us with its own version of country dark. It is called parenthood, old age, adolescence, cancer, troubled pregnancy, war, and returning home afterwards. It is called a broken economy, a loss of self-respect, of the only certainty being the uncertainty we face. Country dark.

One can only marvel at the ability for a young man or woman to volunteer into the various military services. Hoping to earn an education and a fair mortgage in return for service and sacrifice. Knowing well, but hoping against the nagging reality that down the road one can land in the midst of a mountainous or sandy desert country surrounded by souls who not only speak no English, or respect democracy, or in fact; life itself. And yet kids continue to enlist, train, sacrifice, deploy and face the possibility of a very long and perilous journey into a foreign country dark. Nights outdoors with light only from distant stars and muzzle flash, jet fighter afterburners, distant and not so distant artillery ordinance raining down death and destruction. All this with a promise of peril and later; possible lingering shadows that could remain even when one has returned home and left service behind. In essence, the past service draws one back to the darkness in dreams and waking hours too. Out of country, and in country-darkness. God bless those young people and their families.

Back to my walk in the dark to my car…and a walk I made time and again nearly forty years ago. I used to be afraid of the dark, because of what I didn’t know. As a child, I was scared because of what I imagined could be in the darkness. In truth, I knew nothing for sure, other than that I was in fear. Over time, my fear of the dark, both actual and metaphoric, waned in tune with my growth as a person, my maturity level, my accumulation of facts over unfounded imaginings. I learned with experience, with self-assuredness and confidence.

But the main reason a dwindling of the unknown took place, simply and honestly…was an accumulation of the teachings of time, of good explanations of unanswered and misunderstood questions and answers. Of a culmination and acceptance of mysteries and their burdens. The things taught to me by my various teachers: parents, my clergy, my knowing family and friends. My logic and intuition. In a word: Faith.

In times and journeys in darkness, even without sight, there can be vision. Even without a prior time of having been in a certain place, either physically or spiritually, be it a time of ill health, or potential losses of love, of security, of emotional sanctuary, or of life itself…Even in the midst of a metaphoric country dark, there is a guiding hand should you extend yours and allow it to be taken. There is an inner compass steadied by simply believing you can navigate in an implacable darkness. Time and times spent in earnest seeking of the truth will point you to your true north.

That light exists both inside, and in the sky. Even under gathering storm clouds and a mantle of tall timber, there is still that star, that truth, that light. An open heart depletes the cloak of things unseen. An open mind and good old faith brings uncertainty from the shadows, sheds disbelief from things unsure, and many other things that can’t be seen or touched, or heard, or explained.

Faith has a way of lighting those things unknown and lost in country dark. It is light that clarifies depth, provides shadows and exposes a lack of depth, and brings dimension to things lacking in substance and unapparent worth. Faith can shed light on the truth, and also on the absence of truth.

In country darkness, there can be a pure certainty in what you choose to believe with a lack of distractions. In full light, even though we want to believe with all certainty, there are always shadows, always places one can’t see behind or around. There can be deceptive places where depth is undefined. There can be false fronts, false securities, mirages, euphoria, and reflections beyond brilliant that dull the rest of things around us. In country dark, we are limited to what we know from memory, from intelligent deduction, and focus on the other senses. And a confidence in knowing and believing in what cannot be seen. In other words; faith.

Even a young war combatant knows about faith. In fellow patriots, in training, faith in the knowledge of prayers from home, letters from home. A faith in oneself, and certainly; faith in God. Even faith at the moment of mortality, that one hasn’t been abandoned.

There can be darkness in the light of day, which can be lit and illuminated only by faith, pure and simple.

Forty years after my first walks in country dark, I walk a similar path again. And after nearly fifty three years of living and learning, I am still somewhat afraid. I am cautious because of what I know is and isn’t out there in the dark, and yet I still journey. Still walk without a flashlight, and still arrive at my destination. I am still a bit leery of what I cannot see along an unlit path, still have no actual sense of navigations should I be somehow spun around. But I am wise enough to eventually find my bearings somehow, smart enough to stay put if need be till infant dawn, and considerate enough to know that my true north cannot be compromised by an easier path, and that faith has and will always bring me to know home again, even in the mist and midst of a country dark, the path will be clear. I have faith because of what I finally know, and what I am able to simply believe. Even in good old country dark, even today, there is a way…Faith.

Matthew Landsman