What is Really Hiding Under Your Bed?

Have you ever tried to get somewhere but forgot to bring the directions? You start out with a strong conviction that you know where you are going, but then something seems out of place; a little doubt creeps in, and you wonder to yourself, “Is this the way? It looks familiar, but then, again, it doesn’t.” And if the sky darkens as you travel, your doubt increases; you regret having left the directions behind, and you now wish you had the phone number of the person you were going to meet.

Children do not like darkness. They intuitively imagine bogeymen under beds and in closets. As a boy, I would ask my parents not to shut the bedroom door all the way after we said my bedtime prayers, or to leave the closet light on. It was more comforting to have a bit of light than to be alone with the silence of my irrational fears.

As we get older, we grow more comfortable with darkness, perhaps because we are more willing to face the reality of who we really are and to confront more prayerfully that which needs to be changed about how we live our lives.

Searching for meaning in our lives (some might call this looking God) is like that. We keep striving to find something familiar, something to light the way. But then we realize that God calls us to do just the opposite. We must enter the darkness of the unknown, turn away from the familiar, and enter into the threatening void of our deepest fears and anxieties, for that is where God waits.

Julius Caesar set the date for the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, as December 25, when the earth is farthest from the sun in its elliptical orbit. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, it is the time when we are tipped on our axis away from the sun. Science has corrected Caesar’s date for the winter solstice, and science teaches us something more. We now know that being deprived of light can lead to emotional stress and even depression. Modern research suggests that there is much more depression in peoples who live closest to the earth’s Polar Regions, where darkness lasts much longer during the winter days. The depressive psychological effect of winter darkness is called “seasonal affective disorder.” Some call it “cabin fever,” others “the winter blues.”

And the treatment for this disorder? Well, it may not surprise you to learn that it is light. A Wikipedia site explains that “Light therapy, increased negative ion exposure (which can be attained from plants and well ventilated flames, burning wood or beeswax) can reinvigorate the body from its seasonal lull and relieve winter blues by decreasing melatonin secretions, increasing serotonin and temporarily creating a more even sleeping pattern.”

Who is to say that our traditional winter festivals surrounding December 25, calling for lighted houses and trees, parlor fires, communion with close ones, and festive singing, aren’t simply winter therapies that have evolved to help keep us sane during our dark months? Imagine modern science supporting religious tradition and helping us to better understand of our fear of the dark and our intuitive craving for light.

The Judeo-Christian God knows about darkness. The Hebrew Bible opens this way: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.” Two ideas merge in this story: One explains that God created light. God’s first words were, “Let there be light.” The second idea is that all creation was good. All of it was very good.

As we contemplate what God made, we cannot help but imagine that God wanted something more than darkness and void. When God commanded light, God created the opportunity for sight and with it the visual appreciation of the goodness of creation. In creating human beings, God gave us the potential to love each other and to love God. She/He did not command us to love Her/Him. Rather She/He gave us the freedom to seek Her/Him of our own free will. God waits in the darkness for us, and is willing to be lonely while we busy ourselves with our quotidian labors and concerns.

And God still waits. God waits for us to come into the dark, to seek and to say, “I love you” because we want to, not because we have to. Isn’t this the essence of the human condition—a deep desire to be loved and to be needed? The act of leaving the light on in the closet for a child is an act of caring and understanding. Perhaps it is not so much the light that matters as the compassion of the adult to have tenderness for a child who is afraid of the dark and to light the way to comfort and security.

Whose Voice Is It Anyway?

I have been reading and listening to two or three sources this week. One of them is an email my wife sent me while I was teaching on Saturday.

Does this seem odd to you? Because it should. People who live together in the same house do not need to send each other email. Or do we?

The need to connect, to communicate, is strong. No family is perfect, and one day, if you have a life partner who loves you unconditionally, you may find yourself communicating by email once in awhile, even though the person is in the other room.

The second source is a stack of questionnaires that my students filled out a while back. The feedback is very clear: Sunday chapels should be voluntary; and they are too long, too traditional, and too early. Not all of them said this, but many did and so it's time to evaluate the value of school chapel services.

The gospel message for today (Luke 3: 1-6) calls upon us to listen closely, and to consider making some changes in our lives. Here is how it goes: First, we hear from someone called John the Baptist, a country preacher who envisioned a better future for all humanity. He saw big changes on the horizon, and thought the world would be a better place if people would be more disciplined. The discipline he prescribed was fairly simple: Say you’re sorry for the bad things you’ve done. Be truly sorry in your heart. Forgive yourself and others for mistakes you’ve made and they have made. Then do your best to live a clean and honorable life.

John went on to give a reason for his “clean up your act” message. Basically he said: “Someone is coming who is going to radically change how things are evaluated around here, and those who aren’t straight with themselves and others are going to be very, very uncomfortable.”

Making positive changes in the way we behave is hard. We are programmed, it seems, to repeat bad habits. Just yesterday an Episcopal priest from Baltimore was elected suffragan bishop of Los Angeles. Mary Glasspool is a lesbian woman with a faithful partner, yet her election is already stirring up old controversies and fueling new criticism of the Episcopal Church. When will people ever learn?

Old habits are hard to break because changing how we think and act takes serious effort and a strong will. Look at the people who get marks for the same thing over and over. Do the reprimands really work? I wonder? Do advisor talks, deans meetings and residential reviews make a difference?

John must have thought so, because he proclaimed his message with phenomenal energy. I mean, the man had a vision that just wouldn't quit. “God will lift up the valleys and bring the mountains low,” he said. God is going to flatten this world, put everyone on an even playing field and evaluate, so get ready. Basically he was saying, God is going to inspect every nook and cranny of your life—your friendships and allegiances, your private thoughts—everything about your individual life; and God is going to straighten you up. The change will be huge. Monumental. So get ready!

Now, John did not claim to be the one who would change things. What he did was imagine that positive change was possible. In fact, John the Baptist preached that those who failed to imagine positive change, those who had no faith in themselves, would be condemned to live sour and uninspiring lives.

Some of us like flying way above the radar, some of us below. To those who seek to slip through the cracks, John proclaimed that God’s radar was not beatable. There is no stealth craft, no invisibility cloak. We can’t hide.

According to John, the discipline that releases our power of transformation for positive change is spiritual; it is the discipline of repentance—the willingness to say, I am sorry. I can do better. No. I want to be better.

That small but willing desire is an act of the human spirit. To begin we must look at our reflection in a mirror or a pond and say to the person looking back, “Today, I want to be better. God give me the will and the strength to make a change.”

That is what mattered to John.

It will come as no surprise to you that little commitments like this happen around us all the time. I see it especially as I watch my students perform in classes, studios, and on the fields and stages of my school. Several years ago I sat in on a student’s exhibition about the novel Beloved. The teacher made a few provocative remarks to start things off, then asked the student to comment on the strengths of the paper. The student began by defending a particular theme, but was nervous about the performance. Each time the student faltered, the teacher skillfully guided the student back to the theme, and even helped the student along in subtle ways. Witnessing the young person’s performance, I could not help but admire the poise, the ability to discuss certain passages and even quote them, the willingness to see the teacher’s point of view and respond intelligently to new ideas and questions.

Later, in talking with the student about the experience, I listened to wishes that it had gone better, that the themes the student had worked so hard to express seemed trivial now. Clearly the student was anxious and embarrassed by some of the things that were said and written, and the student expressed regret in having faltered under the scrutiny of the teacher.

But the teacher, a brilliant veteran, shared none of this negativity, and even said to me: “You know, there was a lot in that paper!” In that moment I realized that this teacher understood a deep, spiritual truth: no matter how weak or uninspiring an exhibition like that might be, Toni Morrison’s was the dominant voice in the room. Her characters still spoke, and they said, “Repent. Repent your self-loathing, and believe in yourself. Nothing is worse than being disconnected from dignity and self-worth, and no person or institution has the right to separate you from your God-given potential.” A brilliant teacher taught me to listen more carefully for true voices. That day, Morrison’s was not diminished by a student’s stammering or fumbles.

The human proclivity to dissect things and criticize them is nowhere more evident than in a college prep school. Whether we are teachers heatedly debating the need for more rigor in the classroom, or students complaining about food, too much work, or the length of chapel services, we seem to enjoy dissecting our experiences. It is a good thing to be critical, to strive for excellence, enjoy rigor, and have good taste in choosing what is important to us. If something is worth doing, it is worth our best effort. I believe that God deserves our best effort. Not second or third best, but best. And so when John the Baptist speaks to us of repentance, we need to be like that English teacher and recognize that the dominant voice in the room is not ours, but the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to the human spirit.

John’s was not the voice. He said so himself. He was the mouth. God was the speaker. And God is still speaking. That is what Advent means, by the way. God coming, again and again, into our humble existence, calling to give our best and be our best selves.

So be alert, and be ready.

My wife’s email, though somewhat lengthy (she is a good writer), had a simple message. She said, “Some things change, but one thing does not: I am your friend and you are my friend. I love you unconditionally.” The discipline John calls for is repentance. The action, my friend said, is love. Those are voices make real change possible.