Blackout - two kinds of darkness

The morning of the famous Northeast blackout of North America on August 14, 2003, I wrote this startling comment in my journal.
(I am right in the centre.)

"Prayer can be dangerous", says Robert Faricy, "when it is real, prayer pits against me all in the world that rejects Jesus."

Furthermore "until a person has developed a kind of sense for the action of God, it is difficult for him [or her] to make use of these signs [peace, love & joy] with any sureness. There is a complacency that may pass for peace, and there are false joys and wrong kinds of love that maybe mistaken for those of the Spirit."

That day was the largest blackout in North American history. It affected 10 million people one-third of the population of Canada, and one seventh of the US i.e. eight U.S. states.

There are two darknesses in the spiritual life, one is a darkness because of false light because the person has exercised prudence phronesis (see my earlier post) and confused that with discernment. The person is complacent in their relationship with God and do not seek to be familiar with God to know love and be loved. The other is that of faith, a true darkness. "The Holy Spirit leads me to a loving knowing, to a knowing through loving and being loved. This "knowing through love" can take the form of dark knowledge, a knowing in obscurity that seems a non-knowing, a blank. It will often be a groping in the dark, a knowledge in the darkness of faith...".

We can be like the house sparrow which was determined to carry on flying around inside my kitchen, trying to fly higher rather than fly towards the window and darkness. "Discernment differs from prudence. Both concern making decisions, but prudence judges the act itself, whether a given action or option is wise, prudent under the circumstances. Discernment judges the impulse to act, judges whether the idea to do this comes from God or from elsewhere." What seems darkness may in fact be where God is calling us because our faith will grow. Yet if we know we are loved by God and love God so then we trust God in the darkness.

We know that "We all possess knowledge." But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God. 1 Cor 8:1b-3