In his book ‘The Night Sky of the Lord’ Alan Ecclestone suggests “…there are some things that can only be seen in darkened skies, questions only heard in the silence of utter dismay. Such a time is ours” (Ecclestone 1980:39). Perhaps we might echo that such a time is ours too, and maybe try sitting in the darkness in a spirit of questioning. Rather than lighting a candle too quickly, we need time to face our fears and anxieties, to wrestle with our doubts and despair, to rage at a God who is absent or silent, to question our faith and what we think we believe. Perhaps we need time to sit in the darkness and discover who we really are without being distracted and deceived by our external identity markers and defences. Perhaps we need to enter the thick cloud to rid ourselves of the God we have made in our own image and dare to encounter the true God with our true self.