Today I traveled to the Franciscan Friars house in Canterbury to meet up with Brother Colin.

For the next year Brother Colin, a wonderful Franciscan Friar, is going to be my spiritual director. If we both believe its working after the year we will agree to continue.

This morning Brother Colin got me thinking in a number of ways but one in particular followed our discussion of morning and evening prayer. For many years now I have been following and using the daily office from the Northumbria Community. For the last few months, in line with requirements of ordination, i have been using Common Worship for morning prayer. I can’t pretend to be totally comfortable with this as it is over wordy (in my humble opinion) and I resonate far more with the Northumbria liturgy.

As we discussed this Br Colin reminded me of the daily cycle. We know that God’s people saw the day starting at sundown. I was aware of this , but not really fully thought through what this meant.

If the start of the day is when darkness starts to descend, and God created that day, and lives within that day he created, then God is in the darkness as well as the light. It’s easy to think of ‘other powers’ having some rule over the night, or subconsciously thinking God is not in the darkness. Part of Israeli faith, and the first century faith of Jesus, saw very much that God was everywhere, including the darkness.

That brief conversation has opened up a whole new dimension of God for me. I’m now wondering how you recognise God in the darkness!