Scrambling up and down my aluminum extension ladder one
gloomy November afternoon a few years ago, I was struck by the singular
thought: “God had it right.”
You know, in the beginning …
when He was tending to that little six-day cosmos improvement project otherwise
known as the Creation?
What was the first task on His fairly lengthy to-do
list?
“And God said, Let there be light:
and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)
It was the quintessential act of
creation, the first step in bringing order to that which was without form, and
void: “And God saw the light, that it was good.”
My thoughts exactly, as I finished
fastening several strings of multicolored lights to plastic hooks anchored in
our gutters and garage overhang, and threw the switch to illuminate my creation
in the gathering dusk.
O dark, where is thy sting? O gloom,
where is thy victory?
Sure, this sentiment is probably
fueled in some small measure by my inner Clark Griswold: A bit of holiday
exhibitionism, a dollop of yuletide competitiveness: “Russ, don’t you want to have something we’ll be proud of?”
But it is more than neighborhood
one-upsmanship.
Each year, with increasing
intensity, I have been aware of something deeper, almost primal, stirring me to
confront this gathering gloom of fall, to face it head on and somehow try to
turn it back, as if I were King Canute, attempting, in vain, to hold back the
sea by my command. Hence my impulse – nay, my compulsion – to risk life and
limb (the Google reveals that “2.1
million individuals were treated in U.S. emergency departments for
ladder-related injuries from 1990 through 2005,” so I am not making this up),
all for the sake of stringing some multicolored lights across the front of my house.
Why?
Why indeed.
The older I get, the more this
annual incremental loss of daylight that marks the inexorable descent into
winter strikes me as nothing less than a cosmic insult, an outrage, an
abomination, something to be fought with every fiber of your being.
Do not go gentle into that good
night. … Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The “good night” that poet Dylan
Thomas spoke of was, of course, death: The “dying of the light” is a powerful metaphor
for the waning of life.
But here, I can tell, the audience
begins to stir.
Death? Really? Isn’t this guy
overdoing it a little?
The physician diagnoses “seasonal
affective disorder” and scribbles on his prescription pad, “Take two weeks in
the Caribbean, and call me in the spring.”
Fine. If I’m mentally unbalanced –
the sufferer of a mood disorder – at least I’m in good company.
The ritualistic observance of the
solstice – that point at which, because of the earth’s tilt, our little corner
of paradise is farthest away from the sun – is a nearly universal phenomenon in
non-tropical climes, and dates back several millenia. It is well documented
that many cultures the world over perform solstice ceremonies, carrying on in
the tradition of ancestors who were fearful that the failing light might never
return unless humans intervened with anxious vigil or antic celebration.
Historians tell us solstice rituals
were so firmly established by the advent of the Christian era that the leaders
of the early church, faced with a deafening silence in Scripture about the
exact date of Christ’s birth, adopted Dec. 25, perhaps in an attempt to
pre-empt the existing pagan observances.
The result is that one of the most
sacred – and certainly most widely observed – celebrations of the Christian
church is, on a cultural level, an amalgam of the holy and the heathen. This intermingling
of Christianity with a potent potpourri of pagan practices and traditions – the
greens, the yule log, the mistletoe – was abhorrent to many in the early church,
who knew their history and recognized the influence of Roman Saturnalian and
Bacchanalian festivals, not to mention the traditions of my personal favorite
horde of heathens, the Druids.
But upholders of Christian orthodoxy
who have tried to pull the church back from the brink of paganism have been
largely ignored. To which I say … amen.
Hand-wringing aside, there was a
certain genius in the selection of December 25th to observe the most
widely celebrated festival of the Christian calendar.
Timing is everything. If the message
of Christmas is that God sent His Son to be the Light of the World, when are we
more receptive to that message than in our darkest hours – literally?
This is the season when the message of
the prophet Isaiah, renewed in the Gospel of Matthew, and set to music by
Handel, strikes a deep-seated chord: “The people that walked in
darkness have seen a great light: and they that dwell in the land of the shadow
of death, upon them hath the light shined.” Isaiah 9:2.
The observance of Hanukkah – the
“festival of lights” – commemorates the Jews’ triumph over their Syrian-Greek
opressors 21 centuries ago, when they pushed their enemy out of the Holy Land
and reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. When the victorious warriors tried
to relight the Temple’s menorah – the familiar multi-branched candelabrum – they
discovered all but a single “cruse” of olive oil (one day’s supply) had been
contaminated by the occupiers. Miraculously, the supply lasted eight days,
until new oil, prepared according to the rites of purification, was ready. Thus began the tradition of lighting a single candle on the first
night, then two on the second, three on the third, until all eight candles (plus
the ninth, the shamash
or "servant" candle in
the center) are lit – a visual image, if there
ever was one, of the triumph of light over darkness.
This theme, of light conquering
darkness, is hardly unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
I am reminded of the Inuit poem that
precedes the end credits of “Never Cry Wolf:”
I think over again my small
adventures
My fears, those small ones that
seemed so big
All the vital things I had to get
and to reach
To live to see the great day that
dawns
And the light that fills the world.
“The light that fills the world …” Whether
we acknowledge it, or, or quote it in our holy books, or write poetry about it,
we all long for it, we all are drawn to it, like – dare I say it? – moths to a
flame.
At this time of year, I love
returning home at night.
Making the sharp right turn from the
street to our private road, my heart warms at the sight of the simple string of
white lights running the length of our wrought-iron fence.
The inviting lights pierce the
darkness and cast a glow on the road, leading me home.
Let there be light.
1 comment:
Nice!
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