We had a child who was afraid of the darkness. When night fell, when the lights went out, when the house got quiet, she would lie in her bed terrified of every noise and petrified of every shadow. For a time she would even take certain objects out of her room before she went to bed—objects she had come to fear because of the scary shadows they would cast upon her floor and upon her walls. Often she would cry out in the night and we would have to stumble out of bed to quiet her, to investigate strange shapes, to try to convince her to go back to sleep.
She’s a lot older now and no longer so terribly fearful. After all, it’s children and not grownups who are afraid of shadows. As we grow up, as we mature, as we come to understand how the world works, we eventually realize that shadows have no substance, they have no reality, they have no ability to hurt or harm us. We set aside childish paranoias and no longer fear mere shadows.
But even with all of that being true, we do not live free from fears. Though
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