When my son worked a four am shift, we bought black-out curtains for his room. Needing to sleep at a time when light poured in through his window was difficult. My daughter accomplishes the same task, creating artificial darkness, with an eye mask. Darkness is a gift which encourages humans to sleep.

I want to explore the gifts of darkness. I've listened to a few too many sermons this past month about light coming to dispel the darkness. It is a problem to always equate light with good and dark with bad.

In a recent article for anglicanjournal.com, Adele Halliday, the United Church's anti-racism and equity officer, talks about walking away from a church where light and white were constantly associated with good, where dark was said to be evil, where people were washed white from the blackness of sin. As a black woman, she found this language painful.

White and light are not always experienced as good. Bright sunlight on snow can be blinding. I've burned my eyes on winter days when I did not wear sunglasses. Layers and layers of piled and drifted white snow can feel oppressive.

Dark, black nights can be a gift.

I've talked before about coming home from a job interview in Hamilton on a crystal-clear February night. Getting out of the car, I was surrounded by stars. They almost seemed within reach. The Milky Way was a river just overhead. At that moment, I knew that I did not want to live in the city where light pollution means only one or two stars can be seen. With that memory, I knew that moving off the farm I did not want to move into town. I want to see stars from my bedroom window.

I appreciate the sight of a quarter moon in late afternoon, a pale cloud-like mark in the darkening blue sky, but it takes dark of night for the glory of the moon to be seen.

Electrically charged particles are entering the earth's atmosphere all day, but we only see the northern lights when the sun is gone, and the sky is black. The dark lets us see this beauty.

This is true of the eye itself. The white part holds the eye in place. It is the black pupil that allows light to enter, that enables us to see.

White is a cold colour and empty. Black is rich in tone, warm and welcoming. I recently bought a black comforter, warm in feel and in look. The house we bought had been painted white by the previous owners. It looks clean and bright. But the warmth of the space comes with the black accents--the overhead fan, the light fixtures, the faucets, the cupboard handles, the fireplace.

White reflects all light. Black absorbs the light, takes it in, becomes warm. It is no accident that my winter coat is black, and my summer jackets are pale colours.

Night can be frightening. A dark night without a flashlight and we can get lost. But we can get lost in a white-out as well. Stormy days create flat light situations where the world has no shape, no definition. On the farm, I found I would rather blow the snow out of the lane before the sun came up. In the dark, the tractors lights let me see the edges of the path, to find the contrasts. By day, nothing helped me pick out white lane from white yard except the stakes I had placed along the lane.

Shadows are dark. The shadow of a large tree provides shade, protection from the heat of the summer sun. We speak of the shadow of grief, something hanging over us and weighing us down. We can also speak of the shade as protection: "The Lord is the shade on our right hand," wrote the psalmist to assure us of God's protection. (Psalm 121)

Language matters. As Adele Halliday points out, language that is unexamined can alienate. We need a balance. Black and white work together on the printed page and on our tablets--black words on a white page or white words on a black page. Black is good and a gift. White has its place. Darkness is not equivalent to evil, but brings the gift of rest, of warmth, of sight.

Cathy Hird lives on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway