A Shining In The Dark

Grief can feel like wandering off the road without noticing, then looking up and realizing it’s dark and you don’t know how to get home. That’s the emotional weather we step into today as I share a short, dreamlike excerpt from John Fosse’s novel "A Shining", chosen because sometimes someone else’s words can carry what we can’t say out loud.

The reading follows a son who sees his mother and father in the darkness and can’t tell whether he is remembering, imagining, or truly encountering them. He asks for answers, watches the night deepen, and finds himself alone again, listening for meaning in silence and wondering if God can be heard there at all. If you’re looking for spiritual comfort, bereavement support, and an honest companion for the grief journey, let this brief story be a steady hand for a few minutes.

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Art, Artifacts, Fabric and Design:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas and https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/vasonaarts

ELECTRONIC BOOKS:  1000 IMAGES OF JESUS  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6

Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of The Podcast

Candee 0:33

Welcome to Solace: Soul + Grief. I'm glad you're here. My name is Candee Lucas. I'm a Jesuit trained chaplain and spiritual director. I started this podcast because I wanted to have available short prayers and tips and interviews and pieces of scripture that would give people hope along their journey of grief. You're always welcome in this circle of healing, love, and support.

Why Fiction Can Soothe Grief

Candee 1:16

From time to time, I like to add pieces of fiction here that I run across that I find are especially appealing or pertinent to those who are grieving. Sometimes the words of others are so soothing. So today I have a piece from a book called "A Shining by John Fosse". This is a brief summary of the book itself. A man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left and ultimately finds himself stuck at the end of a forest road. It soon grows dark and begins to snow. But instead of searching for help, he ventures foolishly into the dark forest. Inevitably, the man gets lost and he grows cold and tired. He encounters a glowing being and the obscurity. Strange, haunting, and dreamlike. "A Shining" is the latest work of fiction by National Book Award finalist John Fosse. That's a quote from Le Monde. And here is an excerpt from "A Shining".

Reading From John Fosse

Candee 2:56

And they look so old and they look so tired. How can they have aged so much in such short a time? Because it hasn't been long since I last saw them. Or maybe it has been a long time. Maybe it's been years. Or maybe it's been just a few months or a few weeks, a few days. Because it's definitely been more than a few hours, that's for sure. Yes, I know that much anyway. But how long it's been exactly, yes, exactly, exactly. Now there's a word to use in this context. I could hardly have come up with less appropriate word. Yes, well, how long it's been since I last saw them, no, I can't say. But I'm seeing them now anyway, or can I be sure of that? And maybe I'm just imagining that I'm seeing them. That might well be, no. It's not like that. They're standing right there, my mother and my father, right there in front of me. I'm sure of it. And I've talked to them too, or well I've heard them talking to each other. And I think they're looking for me. Didn't they say that? Yes, they said they were looking for me. I say, Are you looking for me? And there's no answer. I see them standing there, my mother and father, and they just look at me, and they don't answer when I talk to them. And of course they need to, because in spite of everything, I'm their son. And I say, You need to answer me when I'm talking to you. So answer, please. Don't just stand there. Answer me. You need to answer me. And I hear that my voice is begging and pleading. Almost pitiful, yes. I'm downright whimpering, you could say. Maybe exhausted too. Or else it's like it's not my voice. It's like someone else is speaking through me, someone I don't know. A total stranger, actually. My mother says, Why are you just standing there and I don't say anything? And she looks at my father and she says, Say something. Why are you just standing there, not saying anything? Can't you talk? Have you lost the use of speech? You need to say something. And my mother looks at my father and she says, Say something, you too. And my father doesn't say anything, and she says, It's always the same. You never say anything. Not even when your son is standing right in front of you, just a few feet away. Do you say something? Can't you say something? You need to say something. You need to say that he has to come with us. And then we have to get out of the forest, walk out of the forest together. And my father says, Yes. My mother says, You can't just say yes. And my father says no. And my mother says, You just say yes or no. And my father says yes. And then they just stand there. My mother and father. They stand there stiffly. Again, they're standing like that, and I think that I have to go over to them. It doesn't make any sense to stand at a distance like this and just look at each other. But I stay where I am and they stay where they are. And so we just stand like that and look at each other. Then look back and down and back and down. No, I can't go on like this, I think. I'll walk over to them now, I think. But I just stay where I am. And I see my mother take my father by the arm and pull a little on his arm. That's what it looks like. But they stay where they're standing. And I stay where I'm standing. And I look up and I see that the stars aren't visible anymore. There are clouds covering the stars, and everything has gotten much darker. Now the moon is half covered by clouds, I see, and I see clouds moving, covering the whole moon. And then it's really dark, and then it's totally dark, and I can barely see my mother and father anymore. They've disappeared into the darkness. They're both totally covered in darkness now, and I'm alone in the darkness again. Exactly like I was before. I can't see anything. And my parents, they were here just now. I saw them. I did. They were here. But where do they go? Well, obviously they just disappeared into the darkness. They're not visible now, the way nothing is visible when it gets dark enough, black enough. Now the moon is covered by clouds and no one can see anything anymore. And I hear my mother calling out, Where are you? And I hear my father say, Here I am. And my mother says, She knows that. She's holding his arm, she says. She didn't mean him, she meant me, she says. And my father says, Yes, of course. I just answered without thinking, and my mother says, Yes, same as always. And it's silent, and neither of them says anything. I stand totally silent. I want to be totally silent. I want to listen to the silence because it's in silence that God can be heard. Someone said that anyway, or something like that. But in any case, I can't hear any voice of God. The only thing I can hear is yes, nothing. When I listen to the nothing, I hear if the nothing can be heard. If that's not just a figure of speech, just something people say, I think yes. I hear yes. The nothing, not anything, not in any case the voice of God, whatever that is. But I'll leave that for an other people to decide, I think. And obviously, it wasn't my parents, I just saw now. That must have been something I just imagined. Because I'm alone now in the dark forest, alone, all alone, as they say, all alone. But haven't I always been like that? All alone. Well, probably I have been. Maybe, and I hear my mother say, Where are you? And it doesn't sound like she's either nearby or far away. It's like it's just her voice that makes a sound in a way. And then there's silence. I'm in the forest, and I'm totally alone in the forest. There's no one else in the forest just me. And I probably won't get out of the forest either. And I'm so tired, and it's so cold. But hasn't everything brightened a bit? I look up and I can see a few stars now. I can't see many stars, no, but a few. And now I can also see a bit of the yellow moon again. It's good that there's a little more light. Everything's better when I can see a little. Yes, of course, that goes without saying, but where did my parents go? They were here just now. I didn't imagine it, I heard them talking. Or it was only my mother talking. Same as always. My father just answered her. Everything was the same as before. Yes, but I'm freezing like this, and if only it doesn't start snowing again. But now it's clearing up more and more, and I can see better and better. But where did my parents go? They were just standing directly in front of me. Even if they were a long way away. But I walked toward them, and they walked toward me. But we were walking so slowly. We walked. We both walked. They did. I did. But it was like we didn't get any closer to each other. Actually, it was really strange and impossible to understand, to tell the truth.

Closing Blessing And Reminder

Candee 13:25

That concludes another episode. A new one drops every Friday. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Remember, be gentle to yourselves this week and to others. Travel always with God at your side. Vaya con Dios.