Hello Darkness . . .

 The old Simon and Garfunkel song was parodied in a Holderness Family video, in regard to the time change and the shortening of days on November 1. video 

The time change (and I honestly have to look up whether Daylight Savings Time begins in November or ends...yes, it ends, so in the spring it begins. The logic escapes me.....)

Anyway, the time change messes with a lot of people, and I'm one of them. I learned several years ago that I had to be very intentional and aware of the fact I would have to drive, walk the dog, and wander dangerously outside if I didn't get my activities done by 6:00 p.m. starting in November. I also have to get up earlier to achieve my requisite amount of sunshine. Fortunately, it's sunny this week rather than raw and rainy, so I'm getting enough. I find myself ready to crawl into bed at 8:00 because it's already been dark for hours.

A few years back I learned my DNA markers are 48% Scandinavian (Norwegian, mostly), so that explains it. All my life I've had dreams that it is sunny at midnight or dark at 11:00 a.m. I do believe in genetic memory or maybe epigenetics, even though I have never lived farther north than the 39th parallel (Athens, Ohio and Washington, D.C. area). I'm on the 35th now. 

I arrange my life starting early November to deal with all of this. I walk the dog early, for instance, as at 2:00 p.m. It's warmer, for one thing. And he stops bugging me about it. My dog Butter lives for three things:  food, sleep, and our walks, and of course attention, and lately he seems to be begging for it. Our other dog is dying and he may feel that, wanting comfort or space. He seems sad, really. Nala, on the other hand, walks around in circles a good bit, has great difficulty lying down and standing up, may or may not eat, and pees or poops inconveniently. She stares a good bit, too. We debate every day about taking her to the vet for you know what. She doesn't seem to be in pain. I don't want to lose a dog that way; I want her just to not wake up one morning. 

A friend whom I lost touch with after moving (and her leaving our church) posted an interview with Michelle Obama by Stephen Colbert. "I didn't know she was so funny," she wrote. "Now that I have 'woke' up . . . "

So she's woke now. I think she was so appalled by DJT, understandably, that she has bought the Democratic line. So be it. She's not the only one. The term "woke" has been vilified and applauded, meaning, I guess, "I woke up out of my stupor about oppression (or whatever) and now I see the light."  I think wakefulness is needed, but not in order to be impressed by Democratic politicians.*  

So in these meanderings on darkness, I come to my reading in Romans 13:

11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk [c]properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

This is real wokeness; awareness of the evil around and intentionally not allowing oneself to be embroiled in it. 

I was reading about the historical sites in Turkey yesterday, about conscience, and about the Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic (Julia Alvarez' priceless book, In the Time of the Butterflies). Spiritual darkness pertains to all of those. So does courage, which I don't think comes to the unprepared. Courage starts with something much deeper. Faith based on knowledge and awareness, keeping your eyes open; your eyes are the light of the body, Jesus said. Intentionality of what should happen--Jesus warned us of the possibilities of being His in the world. Paul and Peter as well. And commitment no matter what.

I am speaking of moral courage, not jumping out of an airplane courage. I don't consider that courage, just comfort with risk-taking.

The Christians of the first three centuries were surrounded by pagans. That is one thing I felt in Turkey--among the interesting history, among the color and modernity, spiritual darkness. I probably would see the same here if I had eyes to. The Turkish people are surrounded by Islam, as their forerunners two thousand years ago were engulfed in idolatry. Temples to a mythic god or to an emperor were "ubiquitous" and unavoidable. Mosques and minarets and five-a-day calls to prayer are the same today. 

A constant reminder of minority, difference, pressure, possibility of punishment for it. To those in Rome, a yearly ritual of having to pay homage to the emperor as the son of "God," and the yearly refusal to do so that might or would mean imprisonment, depending on the decade or emperor's ego. Today, there is freedom of religion on paper but also deportation of non-citizen Christians and a national ID card with your religion, which is "assumed" to be the same as the parents. 

Such is a large part of the world today, and most of history--we in North America and parts of Europe are the exceptions. 

Let us wake up: to the realities of the world's needs, including your neighbor (read the preceding verses in Romans 13), the darkness that wants to cover us as well, and how we make ourselves willing participants in that darkness.  We spend far too much time asleep in media, politics, and entertainment. 

*I think anyone who leaves the Republican party at this point is entirely justified. Unfortunately, we have believed the lie that there are only two choices. I have less trust in the Democratic party than the Republican, and I have an exceedingly low level of trust for Republicans. Trump is appalling. This is nothing new in him, only his willingness to show it.