The Eternal Shadows
- Jonathan Gilliland
- Jun 4
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 10
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.
JRR Tolkien
We don’t know when.
We don't know how.
We don’t know why.
But a strange Thing has come upon us.
And we're quite troubled.
The Thing’s arrival is like an invasive wind which slipped beneath the doors of our consciences and sunk into the bed of our souls, taking up residency without invitation.
Some hide from it. Others dismiss it, ignore it. Some pretend the Thing to be nothing more than a temporary hiccup and that all will return to normalcy soon.
“This, too, shall pass,” they say, chins raised. "If, well, we can only just…um, you know…get by, or hunker down a bit, or weather the storm."
Unfortunately, none of that changes the fact that the Thing is here—invited or not—and its presence, power, and potent production are ultimately unavoidable. The Thing penetrates much deeper than we care to admit, taking up residency not just in the bed of our souls but in the heart of our world.
Indeed, the Thing has a global pervasiveness about it, a kind of prevalence that harkens back to the days of Babel. For example, the expanding universal state of things like immoral flippancy, pornography, sexual perversion, human trafficking, addictions, abuse, deception and manipulation, wolves masquerading as sheep, blatant and unflinching hypocrisy, AI, deep fakes, algorithms, doomscrolling, psychological distress and depression, division, anger, identity confusion, truth crisis, mental unhealth, substance abuse, greed, envy, gluttony, or hyper-political-everything are all tangible markers of the Thing’s engrained, far-reaching presence, power, and potent production.
We might compare these tangible markers to pockets of air bubbling at the surface of the waters, their source belonging to a Thing which lurks unseen in the cold darkness of the depths, well beneath the surface of our seen reality.
But what is the Thing?
I propose that the Thing is a Dark Spirit.
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
Make no mistake. The Dark Spirit is the very cause behind why we find troubling trends occurring within every aspect of our everyday lives, across all cultures and communities. And the weight of its presence, power, and potent production is unbearable, seemingly crushing every grain of our preconceived notion of reality or existence or normal. Honestly, if we’re still capable of being transparent and truthful with ourselves and each other, we must admit that the Dark Spirit has wrecked, rocked, and shaken us—psychologically, physically, relationally, spiritually—wholly and completely.
Still, we must not be unaware that the Dark Spirit’s intent is hardly nearing its full completion. The Dark Spirit's ultimate desire is to use whatever means necessary (see tangible markers above) to draw us deeper into a kind of dualistic cave of secularism and seclusion. Thereafter, the Eternal Shadows.
Yet, herein lies a tragic irony. We hate the Dark Spirit and what it pushes and produces—we are troubled, as it were—but we also can’t help but embrace its promising premise: a still, seemingly joyful life of secularism and seclusion as the tangible end-goal to our very existence, and which can only be found in its cave.
Sure, upon entering the cave, we’re initially startled. We try to adjust our eyes and murmur, “I say, I'm not sure I like this place. It’s cold. Strange. Quite troubling. When does it end? No. Where does it end?”
But the Dark Spirit whispers into our ears, “The darkness isn’t that bad. No, no, Dear One. Of course not. It’s actually quite comfortable and good for your souls, like a warm blanket. Come a little farther in, won’t you? There, there. This way. Come along then. That’s it.”
Therefore, we nod and step farther into the cave.
C.S. Lewis prophetically once said that the only thing which matters then, to the Dark Spirit, is “the extent to which [it can] separate [us] from [Jesus, who is the Light]. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge [us] away from the Light and [deep] into the Nothing. …Indeed, the safest road to [the Nothing, the Death, the Eternal Shadows…to Hell] is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
We nod. We step farther into the cave.
Thus, while we deeply hate this spirit and what it continually causes, we also have a deep curiosity to follow the Dark Spirit farther into the unknown, naively buying into its vain premise while dismissing the truth that once we're at the back of the cave—whenever and wherever that might be—the Dark Spirit’s ultimate desire is to bury our souls forever within the Eternal Shadows.
Escape seems an impossible venture. After all, the pull of the Dark Spirit’s tug on our souls is devastatingly powerful. Even so, it appears we don’t have the resources, energy, or ability to resist.
What’s worse is that the light of day has become like a distant dream, a fuzzy memory of something we once felt and knew, an intangible speck of life and meaning hidden in the past. The Light's shouts have been drowned out by the Dark Spirit's echoing whispers among the cave's walls. Consequently, not only does escape seem unreachable, but we’ve grown to feel too disenchanted, disinterested, and disengaged with even the idea of once again finding the Light.
To the Dark Spirit's delight, the darkness has now become our new reality and existence, our new normal. We’ve told ourselves we can handle it, make do, or discover meaning without the Light. We’ve even insanely concluded that we love the darkness more than the Light, despite Jesus’ long-ago-warnings (John 3).
"Ah! The dark cave is more comfortable and safer and less risky," so we say. "We understand it. We get it. Don't you see? The enclosed dark cave is safer than the open light of day."
In other words, we’ve successfully entertained the Dark Spirit’s idea that its cave can be our new home, and we’re merely settling in as tenants.
Hardly do we suspect, though, that the next phase of this journey—the sudden turn just ahead—is much worse than the initial onset. And, for a time, it’ll seem okay. Tolerable. It'll seem like we’re progressing on the right path or that we’ll at least make do or that somehow or another this reality will finish nicely. Cue another tech breakthrough, podcast, game, policy, political message, reel, addiction, episode, achievement, agenda, another beat of the drum. In the end, however, the Dark Spirit is simply leading us closer and closer to the Nothing, to the Death, to the Eternal Shadows.
All the while, its voice soothes our souls.
The Light slips away.
We nod. We step farther into the cave.
Is there any hope, then? Is this how the story ends for 21st Century Humanity? Another arrest? Another scandal? Another abuse? Another exposure? Another statistic? Another tragedy? Another investigation? Another empty pot at the end of a rainbow? Another addiction? Another fall? Another separation? Another disappointment? Another war? Another vain movement? Another protest? Another soul lost to the Eternal Shadows?
Is this the dark end of it all? Will we simply crash into an inevitable wall? Will we forever be lost to our madness in the back of the Dark Spirit’s cave?
Perhaps.
Or…
Perhaps not.
Time will tell.
Because perhaps we use what little strength and sense we have left, and we abandon the Dark Spirit’s path and simply...turn around.
Perhaps we pursue the Light.
Perhaps we pursue Jesus.
After all, it is the Light that is worth holding on to.
It is the Light that is good.
It is the Light that is worth fighting for.
As Sam once told his dear friend, “It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."
Yes.
Perhaps, before we reach the Dark Spirit's Eternal Shadows, we shall once again hear the voice of the distant Light; and this darkness too will pass, a new day will come, and the sun will shine out the clearer.
Perhaps 21st Century Humanity's little strength and sense will cause them to somehow rediscover the good, that which is worth holding on to and fighting for: the Light, who is Jesus.
Ah, yes.
Before it's too late, perhaps there is still hope for 21st Century Humanity.
Or...
Perhaps not.
Time will tell.
JDG
Comments