During these December days of Advent, I have been holding the dark to my heart. I have been trying not to rush toward the lights of Christmas but have instead been scuttling about in the corners of darkness to find its varied gifts. I have been enjoying waking in the dark hours and returning home in the shadowed hours. I have even intentionally been using fewer lights in the house and in my office. One of my colleagues peeked in my door on Monday in the late afternoon to find me crouched in front of the light of my computer screen, the only other light in the room, a lovely red cutout star with its tiny night-light sized beam hanging in the corner. “It’s getting dark, you know.” she said.
Yes, I know. It is getting dark and has been dark and will get just a little darker before next Tuesday when the Solstice marks the slow, Zen-like return of the sun’s rays. This sitting with the dark has not been uncomfortable though I recognize the privilege with which I do it. I could turn on more light. I have working electricity and the bills have been paid. I could turn on all the lights and flood my senses with its mood-altering gifts. But since I do not suffer from SAD as so many do, I am dwelling in the blessing of darkness and sending my prayers off to those who would find this difficult and painful.

As is often the case, once I start to pay attention to a word or a concept, it seems to show up every where. Poems about darkness, quotes from famous people, songs on the radio, bits of conversations I overhear in a restaurant or on the street. The subject seems to be showing up all around me. It can seem like a movie and everyone knows the title….Darkness!

One such quote that has appeared several times in my reading is this one by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” These are words that many of us have heard for years,in fact, we may even have memorized as part of a history or church school class at some time. They are words that are on the one hand simple and straight forward and they are also challenging and confronting.

As I think about these words in the context of this particular Advent, they are also incredibly profound and prophetic. As our common life is bombarded with words and the sheer meanness of some, it can seem as if hate is being fed with hate, as if there is little light that will ever be found. Though I believe there is gift in darkness, it is also often seen as the symbol of what harms, what wounds, what shows itself as our lesser-selves. Only light can drive out that manner of darkness and its only healing remedy is the light turned on with full force. A light that can show all the cracks and crevices of words crafted in dangerous darkness, a dangerous darkness that fuels hate and divides us rather than unites us, that keeps us further from what our sacred texts assure us is the Holy’s intention for us.

I have been trying to take these words of Dr. King’s into myself and not get pulled in the direction of the culture around. I have been intentionally watching less and less television and listening to more beautiful music. I have made a point of looking into the eyes of those I encounter and not allow the rush, rush of the season to be my rhythm. I have been hoping and praying that my words and my actions will be grounded in love and have been doing a little check in with myself periodically to see how I’m doing.

These are precious days, as all days are, and we won’t get them back. Advent 2015 is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It is a time to put love in the driver’s seat. In the end, it is what Christmas is all about, isn’t it?