The View Up Here: The Gift of Light

The last week and a half has brought tragedy in the midst of the most joyous season – the season of Light. The violent deaths at Newtown, CT and Webster, NY are horrific. And don’t forget that violence and death to men, women and children occur every moment all around the world. In the U.S., we tend to be insulated from this dirty little fact of life on planet Earth until we are hit home. And then when we are, we are tempted in the wake of such horrid acts to abandon hope, to think to ourselves “what is the point of it all?” or to lock and load. For those who may or may not believe in God (The One, The Source, The Universe, The Father, etc.) the question gets lodged in our consciousness: “Why?”

I’m going to blatantly steal from a homily given by Fr. Jim Hickey at Holy Family Church in Rockland, MA to address this. I was there two Sundays ago (Dec. 16) – just two days after the school shooting in Newtown – and he hit us full force between the eyes in his homily. Fr. Hickey said that ‘Why?’ is the wrong question to be asking. The question we need to ask is not why, but rather, “What do I do now?”

On the surface, this looks like a purely pragmatic response. The whole “can’t go back and fix what happened, so we need damage control and new approaches to old problems.” Which is appropriate, in and of itself. But I carried this message with me throughout the week, and meditated upon a deeper meaning.

What I realized was lacking from his injunction was any push to circle the wagons and reinforce an “us vs. other” attitude. Keep in mind that Fr. Hickey and Holy Family are in New England, and this tragedy at Newtown, CT happened in their own backyard, so to speak. Instead, he urged us to embody the best of who we are as humans, as followers of Christ: keep our hearts open, love one another, attend to the mentally ill in a more compassionate and appropriate way, give of ourselves to each other on a daily basis. Heal each other. Promote justice both in the large and small opportunities that face us every day. In other words, in response to “What do I do now?” the answer is to give to each other and ourselves the gift of Light.

Because, as I stated in my previous post and as is clearly evident without me pointing it out, darkness exists. Evil exists. We are separated from our Source, from our Light, from the intimate relationship with God that is at the center of all we desire. And when we are separated, darkness settles in, and it becomes active. It destroys; it brings hopelessness, fear, violence, and hatred in all its forms.

On this Christmas Day, the first Christmas in my life where I have cried for the joy of being in love with and being loved by my Beloved, I pray for the Light to shine through every one of us, joining together to illuminate the darkness. In more practical terms (because I am at heart, after all, a New Englandah), I pray that we keep our hearts open and loving as we now address the looming problems that have reached such an awful climax in our society.

To quote Fr. Hickey, Christmas “is a celebration of the value of human life and of the merciful love of God who has entered into our human condition in all its horror and sorrow and sin and has exalted it by joining it to His divinity.” The Word became flesh; therefore, all flesh is now forever joined to the divine. Emmanuel (which means ‘God is with us’) is with us still. The Messiah, the child of heaven and earth, the Son of Man, is the ultimate gift. Yeshua the Messiah lives in each one of us who keeps our heart open to His gift and to birthing Him – the Light – into the world.