Tony and I are out on a Saturday night. We return home around 9:00 on a dark, dark, night. As we ease in closer to our home, the dark, dark, night turns to eery--a ghostly Halloween movie set. A pedestrian is only noticed when we are a few feet away, and even he, might be a zombie.
Something is amiss, "Where are the street lights?" I ask.
"It's not only street lights. Houses are dark too," Tony answers.
As we pass one black house after another, we notice hollowed out spaces of light. Small circles illuminated by candles, by a phone's light; we see darting flashlight movements.
Strange.
Without electricity, the garage door is an inaccessible cave door without an open sesame code. We find our way to the garage side door, and as we confidently move forward in the unseeable space, I'm thankful for Tony's annual garage organization. We walk confidently in the pitch, to the stairs, to the door.
I regret the cell phone that ran out of energy hours ago--so me, carelessly failing to recharge it mid-day. As the door opens, as the uncertainty of how long the power will be out, I think to myself, Now we'll see how prepared we are.
We're not as unprepared as I feared. Tony walks straight to the pantry, to the shelf with the candles and walks out with a small collection and a disposable lighter. I've often wondered if I've saved too many candles, but tonight I know differently.
I remember the headlamp in my nightstand. Its batteries are dead, but we know the batteries rest in the top drawer of the buffet in the entry. There we find a collection of flashlights, mostly in need of new batteries. When I lament the state of my phone, Tony brings me the portable battery we bought last summer for travel convenience.
We make our way through the house carrying candles, headlamps looped over our heads, a flashlight--just in case. In retrospect, we were silly looking people, carrying our light with us--but this is in essence what we must do.
~~
Just the previous day, my classes and I discussed several scenes from a book about a French village who saved Jews from nazis. When the village's pastor and his two cohorts are thrown into a detention camp with communists, nazi rebels and other disobedients, because they are pacifist pastors, they are greeted with disdain upon their arrival. But after a short few days, the others start to attend their worship meetings. A month later, the spiritual meetings are held three times a week and everyone attends.
Lindsey, a quiet, confident young woman shares her insight, her light. She believes that what the three pastors stood for, everything they believed in, that it was so genuine--it became a part of who they were; and what they were, they carried with them. Because they carried light, they brought light to a prison full of non-believers, full of revenge and hatred, men who were pulled to the light from a place of darkness.
Something is amiss, "Where are the street lights?" I ask.
"It's not only street lights. Houses are dark too," Tony answers.
As we pass one black house after another, we notice hollowed out spaces of light. Small circles illuminated by candles, by a phone's light; we see darting flashlight movements.
Strange.
Without electricity, the garage door is an inaccessible cave door without an open sesame code. We find our way to the garage side door, and as we confidently move forward in the unseeable space, I'm thankful for Tony's annual garage organization. We walk confidently in the pitch, to the stairs, to the door.
I regret the cell phone that ran out of energy hours ago--so me, carelessly failing to recharge it mid-day. As the door opens, as the uncertainty of how long the power will be out, I think to myself, Now we'll see how prepared we are.
We're not as unprepared as I feared. Tony walks straight to the pantry, to the shelf with the candles and walks out with a small collection and a disposable lighter. I've often wondered if I've saved too many candles, but tonight I know differently.
I remember the headlamp in my nightstand. Its batteries are dead, but we know the batteries rest in the top drawer of the buffet in the entry. There we find a collection of flashlights, mostly in need of new batteries. When I lament the state of my phone, Tony brings me the portable battery we bought last summer for travel convenience.
We make our way through the house carrying candles, headlamps looped over our heads, a flashlight--just in case. In retrospect, we were silly looking people, carrying our light with us--but this is in essence what we must do.
~~
Just the previous day, my classes and I discussed several scenes from a book about a French village who saved Jews from nazis. When the village's pastor and his two cohorts are thrown into a detention camp with communists, nazi rebels and other disobedients, because they are pacifist pastors, they are greeted with disdain upon their arrival. But after a short few days, the others start to attend their worship meetings. A month later, the spiritual meetings are held three times a week and everyone attends.
Lindsey, a quiet, confident young woman shares her insight, her light. She believes that what the three pastors stood for, everything they believed in, that it was so genuine--it became a part of who they were; and what they were, they carried with them. Because they carried light, they brought light to a prison full of non-believers, full of revenge and hatred, men who were pulled to the light from a place of darkness.
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