This week has felt dark. The flooding displacing thousands and thousands of people just north of Tokyo. The plight of thousands and thousands of refugees from Syria flooding into Europe in search of food, shelter, safety...home. The 14th anniversary of 9/11 plastered social media with images of smoke, debris, and falling bodies. And my Granddad passed away, and none of us got to say "goodbye".
I was reading Madeleine L'engle last night, and it was just the word I needed to hear:
"...what do you do or say to your children when they're afraid to go to bed in the dark? There was a long and troubled silence. Finally one of the mothers who was a little braver than the others stuck out her neck: 'You give him a night light.' ...
I'm afraid of the dark - not afraid to go up the stairs in the physical darkness of night, but afraid of the shadows of another kind of dark, the darkness of nothingness, of hate, of evil.
So we rush around trying to light candles. Some are real: books, music, friendship. Others blow up in our faces, like too much alcohol and too many sleeping pills or hard drugs or sex where there isn't any love...
St. John says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not understand it, and cannot extinguish is. This is the great cry of affirmation that is heard over and over in our imaginative literature, in all art. It is a light to lighten our darkness..."
And I remember to look to the Light. To be proud of my brothers and sisters in Christ in Japan who are praying for and physically helping those hurt by the floods. Inspired by people all over the world crying for justice - for mercy - and taking action to help Syrian refugees. Encouraged by those who never forget 9/11...but also push on and focus on 9/12: on new beginnings. Comforted that my Granddad died peacefully in his sleep at the ripe old age of 89, and a chance to gather with family and remembering him, his laugh, and how he hated to wait.
And I walk a little lighter, and cling a little tighter to our night Light.
