The Days are Getting Shorter

It might be the darkening days. Or maybe it’s the coolish air wafting in from the formerly frozen north reminding me that nothing is permanent.

There’s a giant anvil hanging over our heads. It casts a big shadow. The sense of peace I was lucky enough to enjoy in my lifetime is over.

Currently, there are 45 armed conflicts in the world, not just the two—Ukraine and Gaza—that  are receiving all the outrage. There are a lot more waiting in the wings too. The Pennsylvania national guard is training to deploy to the Horn of Africa. NATO forces are moving closer to the edge of Russia for the inevitable conflict.  Warships are practicing in the South China Sea and cruising around the Mediterranean just in case.

What?

We’re covering the world in military hardware, selling it to hungry national buyers and law enforcement agencies and selling it to each other in case we catch our neighbor pissing on our petunias.

Did I mention the mass migrations—caused by climate crises and the resulting lack of arable land—which in turn causes a political shift to the far right and authoritarian regimes? 

Happening here, under the shadow of the anvil. What can I, one lone crank, do?

But it’s Christmas and I’m trying to feel hopeful in the face of compelling evidence that man is a mad animal incapable of self-awareness. Trying to see the light, like I tell everyone else to do.

At Christmas Vespers at the old Moravian Church in Bethlehem several years ago, I got a whiff of what it feels like to be hopeful. There’s a part in the service where the lights go out and everyone lights beeswax tapers. The student choir descends from the organ loft and files through the pews to the front of the church singing an African hymn and moving gently to its beat. I closed my eyes, in the cold desert night with them, marveling at the supernova light years away in the sky and rejoicing at the palpable shift in energy. It was as if time and all creatures froze and genuflected in the face of the goodness which had visited us in the form of a little baby.

I knew it was theater and mythology, but I cried my eyes out.

Because what did that little baby say? He said, love your neighbor as yourself. 

Peace, love, and happy Christmas.