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| Awesome shot of last week's solar eclipse from Mallorca, Spain, by my brother-in-law Urs Schoop. Used without permission. |
Just because the lights are off does not mean it is dark.
We have just traversed the stretch of weeks on either side of the solstice that offers the most marvelous skies and morning light already at half past five when I walk over to the church for early Mass. Inside still it is dimmer, but the illumination is underway and the stained-glass glows, the colors of the windows entering the dance with the colors of the sky as the gentle and golden light fills the contours and corners of the holy place from every direction and none over the next spectacular half-hour.
The routine of the others who come to the church first thing is to find and flick the switch that ignites a bulb or three, the blaze of which paradoxically casts the church back into harsh shadows and darkness. I groan.
Just as some people swear they cannot hear unless the voice be amplified through a loudspeaker, there will always be people who are convinced it is dark unless the electric lights, and all of them, are switched on. In so doing, they often demand their own disadvantage.
When I was a Boy Scout, we once had a night-hiking exercise in which we found our way along unfamiliar paths by designated markers as we went. It did not take long for my group to discover that our flashlights were not helpful; instead, they blinded us to everything except what was in the bright small disc of their beams. Practicing ‘light discipline’ and keeping all the lights in the group switched off allowed us to see revealed the sky itself with moon and stars, and the gentle illumination they provided to the piney woods through which we picked our way. Once eyes grew accustomed to the light present in the darkness, there were both greater awareness and fewer surprises as we made our way toward the goal.
As it has long seemed obvious to me that with less amplification, there is more that I can hear, so it is that up to a certain point with less artificial light there is far more to see. How could light-discipline be applied fruitfully to our days to enhance our sight in other ways as well, to help us see what would otherwise go unnoticed, and perceive what under normal circumstances is invisible? If stilling the noise around us is the first step to hearing the voice of God, what artificial light sources must we switch off to see what He is showing us?
The adage about lighting a single candle still applies when there is complete darkness. Just this week as the approaching equinox began to exert its restrictions on our daylight, holding back the sun more and more each morning, I have reluctantly resorted to switching on the bare minimum of lights myself when I open the church, for the sky stays mute and unyielding in its inked solidity. I regret this violence, but the church would otherwise be too dark, and while that is something I can othertimes enjoy, it is impractical for the folks with work to be done and prayers to be said before the morning sacrifice is offered. Only just before go-time at 6:30, through the sacristy windows that give out to the field, the rising sun sets fire to the treeline along Saint Lawrence, no small spectacle itself. That, too, comes noticeably later each morning. The slope of day’s decline grows steeper as the season’s change comes nearer.
As summer dwindles and its sweetness yields to autumn and its decay, night claims more and more from our days. Remember, though, before you reach for the switch earlier and earlier each evening: just because the lights are off does not mean it is dark.
Monsignor Smith
