Yin Yang

The Yin Yang symbol is a black tear drop shape side by side with a white tear drop shape, and then there is a white dot in the middle of the black and a black dot in the middle of the white. This may or not be the “official” interpretation, but I was thinking about this shape in terms of the, let’s say, good and bad experiences we have in life. Like the black shape, we all go through experiences that are dark and painful and meaningless, but though the night may never seem to end, though the pain never seems to dull, though we can not imagine that there is any possible way in which our suffering can mean anything that will be for our good, nevertheless, though we may not have found it yet, though we may have given up looking for it, there exists in even the blackest experiences at least one tiny dot, one nugget, one seed of goodness. We don’t even ever have to find it to have the faith and the hope and the strength to carry on. We can trust in God that there is at least one tiny dot of goodness in even our most horrible experiences. And then, on the other hand, the white shape. We live in a fallen world. All of our best efforts, our most sincere desires will fall short of perfection. There will always be that one flaw that makes things less than ideal. But another way of looking at it is that although we may be flawed, prone to make mistakes, quick to abandon our covenants, in short, one tiny little disappointing dot of evil, we are nevertheless surrounded in a sea of the white light of God’s goodness, and He can take us, small and weak and inconsistent though we are, and grow us into a powerful force for good in this world. We can trust God that no matter how filled with darkness, there is at least one spark of light in everything we experience. And we can trust God that no matter how hard we try to improve and yet fail to utterly banish our weaknesses and our rebellions, He rather sees in us all that is good and is pleased with our efforts.