Made For Joy, Made For Peace
It has been a strange Christmas season. Many of my friends who are normally upbeat and optimistic have seemed melancholic, if not downright depressed. I often get more weepy around the holidays, but admit that I too have felt somewhat more fragile this year.
I chalk up some of this discontent to worry over what will happen in our country after January 20th as well as the chaos and conflict swirling around our world right now. Never before have lines from the opening of A Tale of Two Cities rung more true for me:
It was it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …
Even the daily Mass readings in these days after Christmas have felt like an emotional roller coaster ride. First comes the rejoicing on Christmas Eve when the shepherds are led to the Christ child. Then, on the day after Christmas, we hear of the stoning of St. Stephen, the church’s first martyr.
That’s followed by John’s gospel on Dec. 27, recounting the joy of the resurrection. The next day we commemorate the slaugher of the Holy Innocents, marking Herod’s murder of male children under two years of age in his quest to rid himself of the Christ child.
I reflected on all of these readings. They brought to mind a wonderful poem called “Light and Dark” by my friend James Crews. To be alive, James suggests, is to live in the tension between darkness and light, between joy and all that opposes it. James cites the Japanese concept of komorebi. It signifies those moments when sunlight filters through the leaves on a tree, casting dancing shadows on the forest floor. In other words, an instance of shadow companioning the light.
Here is James’ beautiful poem:
“Light and Dark”
Half awake, I lose myself in a pool
of late morning sun and leaf shadows
flashing on the floor outside my bedroom,
what the Japanese call komorebi — light
and dark held in the same container
of a single moment, as we hold them in us,
learning to love equally a burst of joy
welling up like a wind in the crowns of trees
and a sorrow that still weighs us down
like stones in the shoes, like swallowed clay.
Today, I stand here at the edge of both,
knowing that if I want to walk in the light
I’ll have to dance in the shadows too.
James’ poem reminds us that we can hold both darkness and light in ourselves and still not be bowed down. We can learn to love both equally.
Happily, the passages from Isaiah and the Psalm readings at daily Mass during this time of year, like James’ poem, also reflect the light of joy and peace. One of my favorites is Psalm 72, which offers an image of the world we must work toward:
The mountains shall yield peace for the people
and the hills justice.
(God) shall defend the afflicted among the people,
save the children of the poor.
Justice shall flower
and profound peace, until the moon be no more …
When I read that Psalm, I think of the folks from the Catholic Worker movement, Pax Christi USA, and other peace and non-violence groups who braved the cold and risked arrest last week to stand in front of the Pentagon and read a litany of the acts committed against the “holy innocents” of our day, partly through U.S. weapons supplied to countries at war. We taxpayers will spend $895 billion on our military and on weaponry in the coming year.
Art Laffin, one of the activists, read these words at the protest:
We greet everyone going into the Pentagon and the Pentagon police in a spirit of peace and nonviolence … (We) remember the innocents who have been killed — past and present — due to greed, oppression, racism and war. In this time of perpetual war, nuclear peril, and climate chaos, the lives of countless innocents are endangered by today’s Herods. As followers of Jesus, who commands us to love and never to kill, we unequivocally oppose and condemn all killing, no matter who the perpetrator is. We remember and pray for all victims of violence, war and occupation — from Ukraine to Sudan, the Holy Land and elsewhere.
Yes, our world seems dark right now, but the courage of these peace groups to speak out is a source of light and hope.
So here is a challenge for the coming year. Can we learn to hold both darkness and light within ourselves without despairing? Can we, as James suggests, “love equally” the meaning contained in both darkness and light? Can we dance in shadow times? Most importantly, in the coming year, how can we be light for others and our world?
