The divinely inspired description of the creation of the universe holds some remarkable images &045; God as wind sweeping over the face of the waters, as life-giving bearer of fruitful trees and as crafter of dry land and foamy seas.

Can we fail to thrill at considering the oceans teeming with their first sea monsters, the land with its creepy-crawly animals and the skies with brilliant winged birds.

Where are words more appropriate than here that &8220;Š it was good.&8221;

Still, one image dominates all the other splendid ones in the first chapter of Genesis. &8220;God made the two great lights &045; the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night &045; and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth Š to separate the light from the darkness.&8221;

For the thousands of years since the Bible provided man with these images, darkness has been the subject of study, speculation and fascination. Is darkness the absence of light? Is Satan really the Prince of Darkness?

To most of us, darkness is mysterious, sometimes even sinister. In darkness we fear what may or may not be there. Darkness is danger, even as in a common household accident such as stepping on the child’s toy left carelessly in the middle of the floor.

Who would have thought that darkness would become the center of some of the most intense scientific study taking place today.

Scientists who study the heavens look for much more than the lights in distant pockets of the universe. They also search the dark. What they have found is a kind of energy as intriguing as life itself and, in fact, essential to the existence of all living things.

Some descriptions of this dark energy refer to it as repulsive; that is, its force acts upon the emergence of its opposite in the universe.

In fact, recent studies have revealed the mysterious dark energy far outweighs the small percentage of what we know as the creation &045; including ourselves, Earth and the stars, for example.

Telescopes, studies show, cannot harness the exotic darkness; scientists have not identified its traits, which appear to be different from the matter in which our known world is made.

Further, most recent findings are that the amount of dark matter is exactly what the universe requires to keep our creation from folding into itself, as Dante said in the 14th century, &8220;into the eternal darkness, into fire and ice.&8221;

One science reporter said in a recent article that &8220;we are left with one more hint that the universe is fine-tuned for life and, perhaps, intelligence.&8221;

Pity the scientist who has not fallen awe-struck time and again at the precision with which the world turns, from deep in the dark abyss of the ocean to the inky skies on a starless night.

Prince of Darkness? A 17th-century thinker posed the idea that in God there is a &8220;deep but dazzling darkness.&8221;

The image of a great umbrella above the earth with holes poked for heaven’s light to pierce is a charming one. Reality, however, is titillating. Indeed, the darkness, like the light, is dazzling.

Joan Gandy

is community editor of The Democrat. She can be reached at (601) 445-3549 or by e-mail at joan.gandy@ natchezdemocrat.com.