Light and Dark
Years ago, a friend of mine had introduced me to the notion of taking a night near Christmas to go for a run just to look at lights. No real planned route or distance, but just to see the lights. This was always a really enjoyable way to spend a few minutes on a chilly December night. Last week I decided that I needed to revive that this year after a several year hiatus. Then came Friday.
Tonight was the night that I had set aside to look at lights in windows, Angels in yards, fake Santas, and all the rest. As I settled into the run my mind turned to the horror of Friday. Equal amounts of grief and anger set in. I wished that I could be there in Newtown to put an arm around every Mother or Father who'd lost a child. Who'd lost posterity. Unlike previous school shootings in high schools or at Virginia Tech, these student victims had hardly even begun life. For these there would be no little league baseball, no first dance, no prom queens or high school quarterbacks.
The stark disconnect between the fake Santas, wreaths, and angels and the inhumanity in Connecticut hit me like a brick between the eyes. At first blush I felt like just wanting to take all the stuff down as I ran from yard to yard. Then another thought came to mind. The window lights, trees, reindeer, etc. all have no inherent religious value or symbolism at all. As such they can offer no solace to a family that will have an unopened stocking this year. Just as early Christians co-opted the December celebration of Saturnalia to celebrate the birth of Christ, we can do the same now. To the extent that we as Christians believe that Christ really is the light of the world, the true light that darkness cannot overcome, perhaps we should stick another string on the tree or put up one more rooftop sleigh.
The horror of yesterday is primarily a spiritual event. There has been darkness and profound evil in the world ever since our first forbears ate the forbidden fruit. We can enact better security measures to make schools, airports, etc. safer, but the evil will still lurk. Friday, Dec. 14, was a day that defies all our trite platitudes- you know them as well as I do: "God needed another angel," "everything happens for a reason." None of them offer the slightest consolation to those who grieve in Newtown. Sometimes we go through life expecting some sort of Karma governs everything- good happens to those who are basically good. Here we have an outbreak of evil and darkness that forces us to reassess.
If the events of Friday the 14th are evil and dark, perhaps the best that can come of them is to force us to look even more for the coming of the one who is light. The Christian hope isn't that somehow everything is okay right now despite what our eyes tell us. Rather it is that the day is coming when justice and righteousness wins. When God wins. All the ancient wrongs will be made right, and Christ will reign in peace eternal. This may be a good time to look again at an old carol not sung much until Casting Crowns recorded it a couple of years ago. Longfellow wrote in the dark days of the Civil War that, "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on the earth good will to men. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: God is not dead, nor doth he sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth and good will to men."
Tonight was the night that I had set aside to look at lights in windows, Angels in yards, fake Santas, and all the rest. As I settled into the run my mind turned to the horror of Friday. Equal amounts of grief and anger set in. I wished that I could be there in Newtown to put an arm around every Mother or Father who'd lost a child. Who'd lost posterity. Unlike previous school shootings in high schools or at Virginia Tech, these student victims had hardly even begun life. For these there would be no little league baseball, no first dance, no prom queens or high school quarterbacks.
The stark disconnect between the fake Santas, wreaths, and angels and the inhumanity in Connecticut hit me like a brick between the eyes. At first blush I felt like just wanting to take all the stuff down as I ran from yard to yard. Then another thought came to mind. The window lights, trees, reindeer, etc. all have no inherent religious value or symbolism at all. As such they can offer no solace to a family that will have an unopened stocking this year. Just as early Christians co-opted the December celebration of Saturnalia to celebrate the birth of Christ, we can do the same now. To the extent that we as Christians believe that Christ really is the light of the world, the true light that darkness cannot overcome, perhaps we should stick another string on the tree or put up one more rooftop sleigh.
The horror of yesterday is primarily a spiritual event. There has been darkness and profound evil in the world ever since our first forbears ate the forbidden fruit. We can enact better security measures to make schools, airports, etc. safer, but the evil will still lurk. Friday, Dec. 14, was a day that defies all our trite platitudes- you know them as well as I do: "God needed another angel," "everything happens for a reason." None of them offer the slightest consolation to those who grieve in Newtown. Sometimes we go through life expecting some sort of Karma governs everything- good happens to those who are basically good. Here we have an outbreak of evil and darkness that forces us to reassess.
If the events of Friday the 14th are evil and dark, perhaps the best that can come of them is to force us to look even more for the coming of the one who is light. The Christian hope isn't that somehow everything is okay right now despite what our eyes tell us. Rather it is that the day is coming when justice and righteousness wins. When God wins. All the ancient wrongs will be made right, and Christ will reign in peace eternal. This may be a good time to look again at an old carol not sung much until Casting Crowns recorded it a couple of years ago. Longfellow wrote in the dark days of the Civil War that, "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on the earth good will to men. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: God is not dead, nor doth he sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth and good will to men."
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