“What is dark within me, illumine.”

“No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated from within; paper lanterns among the dark trees.”

“When the invocation descends into the heart, if there is darkness within, it illuminates it; and if there is already light, the invocation increases the light and intensifies it.”

“This lamp that burns within letting me burn the grief, agony, confusion & bitterness before returning to the steady light that illumines.”

“Ah; but my courage fails me, and my heart is sick within me! —Lord, take pity on the Christian who doubts, on the skeptic who would fain believe, on the galley-slave of life who puts to sea alone, in the darkness of night, beneath a firmament illumined no longer by the consoling beacon-fires of the ancient hope.”

“I’m not certain what I notice first, the bright flickering light that illuminates the darkness underneath my eyelids, or the shrill screams that pull me form the dredges of sleep. Either way, I’m awake. And afraid.”