Month: November 2018

The nighttime images from space of North Korea uniformly show the hermit nation as dark — bleak, even — an island of black surrounded by a sea of light.

No night lights. I hope no one is afraid of the dark.

Among Christian families, this time of the year — Thanksgiving or St. Nicholas Day until Christmas or New Year’s — is the season of lights, often lights so bright they’re visible in the International Space Station. For other believers, Diwali ended recently, and Hanukkah is almost here. And then there’s Kwanzaa, among a multitude of festivals of light.

We need light.

We need light on so, so many levels.

From a practical standpoint, at this latitude in late fall and throughout the winter, the shorter days compress our to-do lists. Wind chill bites those agendas as well.

From a psychological-physical standpoint, folks nipped by Seasonal Affective Disorder are feeling the Not Enough Blue Skies Blues. As if crass Xmas commercialism and the incessant ads for Medicare supplement insurance policies weren’t enough….

And then there’s our fundamental human need for hope.

Whether we’ve found ourselves in the Psalm 23 valley or marching through hell, we know, in our fiber, that better days are ahead if we seek the light. If we follow the star.

As far back as I can remember, we decorated our home with Christmas lights. My childhood home was the same as everybody else’s in the development: multicolored C-9 incandescent teardrops hung from brass cup hooks on soffits and roof peaks, plugged in by hand at sundown and unplugged by the last person to head off to bed (unless he — always a he — forgot).

We used fewer lights during energy crisis years, and added more in good times. Tiny incandescents replaced big bulbs; dangling icicle effects succeeded simple strings. These days, LEDs rule.

Some neighbors go all out with illuminated inflatables; others with insane amounts of computo-electrono-engineering skills (and stock in the power company) put on a TSO light show I could only dream about while a theater student.

It matters not if you’re religious or a humanist.

Light brings hope.

Hope brings joy.

Joy engenders peace.

Let there be light.

“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow, or with taper-light to seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, is wasteful and ridiculous excess.”

When is carnage necessary? When does a tragedy make sense?

Every time a TV or radio newscaster — or, all too often, a spokesman for law enforcement or first responders — says “this senseless tragedy,” it implies that some tragedies occur logically, that some thefts of precious life were necessary.

Melodrama adds to the numbing of America. Mark Twain had little use for excess adjectives, and his wisdom is all the more valid today.

Murder.

Rape.

Abduction.

Abuse.

Of course, senseless.

Of course, unnecessary.

Of course, (choose your hackneyed adjective).

But look at those words. Hear them in your head. Feel the chill, the anger, the sadness. They need no modifying.

The more we sugar- or mud-coat these terms that pierce our hearts, the more we blunt their power to move us.

If we do not move, we do not act. Instead, we think and we pray.