How It Is

There is a new installation at the Tate Modern in London by Miroslaw Balka, called "How It Is". The installation is basically this: a giant metal box lined with felt into which people can walk. As you enter the box, the world around you gets progressively darker. The people you have entered with get harder and harder to sense, even thought they are only 6 inches away. And when you reach the end, you are are staring into a dizzying and disorienting darkness that seems to go on forever. I have heard that the artist has described being inside the box as "the state of society today."

During a walk along the river today, I experienced "How It Is". I have never experienced anything like it.

As I walked further and further into the box, I felt an ever-increasing sense of dread, fear and confusion. All I wanted was to reach out to someone and know that I was not alone. When I reached the end of the box and was staring straight into the pitch-black felt, I felt that there must be no end to the blackness. I found myself touching the felt wall several times just to remind myself that there was an end to it, and as soon as I felt the end the room stopped spinning.

And all I could think of, was that every day, all around me, Londoners live in a sense of isolation just like the one I was feeling. They live in a world of darkness and confusion, never knowing when it would end.

After leaving the box, I stood for some time and watched my friend playing with his one-year-old son just outside the exhibit. You could tell by the way he looked at his little boy, and by the way the boy looked at him, how much my friend loves his son and how secure the boy feels in that love. And I was struck by the contrast between the two experiences, the box and the boy. And in that moment, I was toppled by the fact that we were all meant to experience the love that boy knew, and that just as much as my heart broke with the isolation of the box, God's heart breaks even more over the isolation and fear and loneliness so much of the world feels everyday.