Beauty Exposes Darkness
The God on the Bathroom Floor
Trigger warning: abuse, self-harm, and pain
There is a lot of darkness in our world. But that is not the default even though many believe that to be the case. To claim that darkness is the default, the way things are, or the way things must be is to accept fate as a reality. Existentially, fate is anti-human. Why? Because human beings have true agency - darkness is not our base setting. If we were to reboot humanity, we would not all wake up wishing to do evil. Yes, many Christians believe in total depravity. But Christians can mean different things by the word depravity. For Wesleyans, we believe that prevenient grace allows human beings to respond to God, but also allows us to do good even apart from knowing God. It is how we can see truth in places that truth may not have been meant originally. But prevenient grace is also that which prevents the chaos of darkness from taking root.
Dr. Diane Leclerc explains another way tot look at what we call depravity as deprivity.
Through the Fall, we are deprived of our primary relationship with God, and our other relationships are consequently distorted; but the capacity for love, and the hope of renewal remains. Prevenient grace enables this capacity to be actualized, and opens our senses to God. Since prevenient grace is given to all, humanity “without God” is a “logical abstraction.”
We are deprived, but prevenient grace enables us to love and opens our senses to God. This is a picture of beauty shining a light into dark places. Human beings can love even when they do not know God. If we can love, then we can see and make beauty as well. When I was thinking of ways to show beauty that reaches into darkness, I remembered a viral video of an America’s Got Talent (AGT) audition from 2021. In the video a young woman who used the name Nightbirde, told her story of cancer and sang an original song titled “It’s OK.” Here’s that audition for you to watch. The song is simply beautiful. But the story and the hope in spite of illness is breathtaking.
It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay
If you’re lost
We’re all a little lost and it’s alright
Boom. The sheer optimism of being able to say two percent is not zero percent. Just wow. When that audition went viral, a blog post by Nightbirde also went viral. In that blog post, Nightbirde spoke of her feelings of being sick. How she related to God - including anger. It was a psalm of hurt and hope.
“Even on days when I’m not so sick, sometimes I go lay on the mat in the afternoon light to listen for Him. I know it sounds crazy, and I can’t really explain it, but God is in there--even now. I have heard it said that some people can’t see God because they won’t look low enough, and it’s true.
If you can’t see him, look lower. God is on the bathroom floor.” Jane Marczewski (Nightbirde)
You see, Nightbirde understood that God is there on the bathroom floor; in our pain, and in the midst of darkness. One mistake I believe the white evangelical church makes is to look for God in places of power and influence. To look for God in politicians, the wealthy, and the popular. Maybe we need to look a little lower. But lower doesn’t make us look respectable or pay the bills. But it is definitely where the prophets told Israel to look for God. For then God was among the poor, the outcast, the powerless. Jesus cane into the world as a baby in a place and to a people with no power. His ministry was centered in the poor, the widows, the powerless, and the outcasts. Jesus brought hope to people for whom hope was a distant promise.
Sadly Nightbirde had to drop out of AGT and the cancer finally overcame her optimism in 2022. But the beauty Nightbirde sang and spoke about goes on. I will return to her story in a moment, but I wanted to talk about the ways that darkness can become too much.
Light Shines in the Darkness
Even great beauty can succumb to darkness if we let it. One of greatest impressionist painters (one of my favorite painters) is Vincent Van Gogh. He used color, and beauty to tell a story of inner pain. Van Gogh painted beauty in the midst of his own darkness. That darkness eventually won and he took his own life. The BBC science fiction show Doctor Who has an excellent episode entitled “Vincent and the Doctor.” The Doctor and his companion Amy meet Van Gogh and the Doctor decides to take Vincent into the future to see what he came to mean to many. Here is the clip of that scene in which Vincent sees the way he is remembered.
The Doctor knows that this will not change the outcome of Van Gogh’s darkness, but he tries. He wanted to shine a light of hope in the darkness of a tortured mind. When we look for God on the bathroom floor we have the opportunity to shine light into dark places. The church would be much better off telling the stories of goodness rather than stories of power. Stories of a God who is present in every moment - even in the moments of deep and overwhelming darkness. We need to be a people proclaiming a God for whom there is no place God is not. But that takes courage and a hope of light. Sadly, we too often reach for the power rather than the light.
The Darkness is Real
There is real darkness and evil in the world. Human beings make the decision to do evil. Fear of that darkness can cause us to make bad decisions ourselves. Politicians and others promise peace and safety if only you will support them. There are those who promise the same for a price of only $XXX.XX. But their peace is fleeting and their safety is only present if you support them. The wealthy and the powerful do what they want, to whom they want, and typically do not face consequences.
One darkness is sexual assault and trafficking. The Epstein files are only the latest evidence of the way that the powerful engage in harm to the powerless. The victims of the Epstein class were ignored and vilified. They continue that from the powerful. Recently the Attorney General of the United States refused to look at the victims during a congressional hearing. The AG chose to talk about the Dow Jones Average and defend the decision to not prosecute. Just one reminder that money trumps people for the powerful. Survivors of sexual violence and abuse can be triggered by the repeated justification for supporting those refusing to release or prosecute.
Hope in the Darkness
But there is hope. If we look in the right places. God is there on the metaphorical bathroom floor. God is there with the improperly detained immigrant. God is there with the human beings whose humanity is diminished by the words of the powerful. God is present in the moments of beauty that inspire. Back to Nightbirde, whose performance on AGT inspired others. Like the Doctor attempting to show Van Gogh hope, Nightbirde shone light into a youth choir in South Africa. The Mzansi Youth Choir heard Nightborde perform and it led to them recording the song “It’s OK.” They took this to AGT themselves shortly after Nightbirde passed away from her cancer. Their perfomance left Simon Cowell as speechless as Nightbirde did when she told Cowell that “you can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.”
We may never know the impact we can have on the world by simply sharing beauty in the darkness. The light shines into darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. Humanity needs beauty so badly. I hope the church can be a beacon of beauty rather than an apologist for darkness.
Leclerc, Diane. Discovering Christian Holiness: The Heart of Wesleyan-Holiness Theology (p. 217).
