Darkness and Light

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Throughout history, humans have spent a great deal of time and effort framing countless experiences in terms of darkness and light.

As children, many of us were afraid of the dark, most of us who have or had children often placed a night light in the child's bedroom.  According to research, most children under the age of two have a fear of the dark to some degree, however, most children and adults "outgrow" that fear.

Most adults tend to be less comfortable in darkness and as one ages, that level of discomfort tends to increase which could be related to eyesight issues that are a natural part of the ageing process.  However. there are also some adults who are much more comfortable being up and about after dark and are very uncomfortable in the light, but they are more the exception rather than the rule.

Throughout literature, there are countless references to darkness and most of those references are indeed in one way or another negative.  

Many popular phrases use references to darkness and light like "being kept in the dark" meaning not being told about something or not being told the truth about something.  Another is "you are the light of my life" meaning you are a very important or the most important person in someone's life.

Think about the many hymns that we sing that include lyrics celebrating light and the relationship between light and God and light and Jesus.

In Holy Scripture in both the Old Testament and the New Testament there are numerous references to darkness and light and the overwhelming majority of those references can be summarized as:  darkness BAD, light GOOD. 

As I write this it is election season in America.  It is also a time that America is undergoing a major health crisis with 7,864,327 confirmed cases and 218,0174 confirmed deaths (and growing by the minute) due to Covid-19.  Over and over we hear reports of this epidemic couched in terms of darkness.  Over and over we hear individuals on opposite sides of political thinking "painting pictures" of the opposition in terms of darkness and light.

Throughout all of this I pray every day that indeed light will prevail over darkness.

Amen 






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