We have lost sight of what it means to wait like watchmen for the dawn, here in our post-Edison world. We can keep darkness at bay with the flick of a switch. When Jen posted about her reckless experiment, the element that shocked me was the idea of a life's rhythm in which a day's work ends at nightfall.
I am reading The Return of the King to my middle boys. We are in the stretch where Sauron's darkness has crept across the river from Mordor, and the hobbits and the Rohirrim and the men of Gondor are all hungry for sunlight. It's something I have thought about before, that aching for light when darkness is all around, something on my mind especially here in the darkest time of the year.
Today's antiphon contains an echo of yesterday's: they both implore the Lord's deliverance for those "idling in darkness and the shadow of death." It sparked a thought for me: if you are locked in solitary confinement, or in darkness, you will likely be idle. Dr. Manette could not do the healing work he was trained to do in the Bastille; there is little work that can be done well in darkness. We tend, I think, to conflate freedom and leisure, but they are not the same thing. Christ calls us out of that enforced idleness, so we can labor gladly to further his Kingdom. It's a good thing for me to remember today, now that I've finished my grading and am looking at all the work that must be done between now and Christmas. :-) Shine upon me.
refulgence of eternal light, and sun of justice,
come and shine upon those
idling in darkness and the shadow of death.
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