Written by Deacon George Harmansky
Light is light, Dark is dark. Once upon a time that was spoken to me and quite frankly I sure had no clue exactly what that meant. As I grew in years and thankful some wise-ness I began to see the wisdom of the comment. First in a physical sense and later spiritually. As a child, as many do, I had this (yes) fear of the dark. Who is afraid of the dark? I mean - pitch dark - that you can’t see your hand in front of your very eyes. There is something about the dark that elicits fear, apprehension, uneasiness. It just creeps you out. Now that being said, in life we typically associate dark(ness) with evil. Often the ‘bad guy’ in the movies is portrayed as this sinister, evil individual dressed in black apparel and accessories. Even bats, which many of us so fear and speak about with disgust, thrive in the darkness of our world – go figure they like the dark. As human beings we work, feel, act differently, better in the light with sunshine as compared to that in the night-in the dark. In the midst of a storm on the ocean the ship’s captain seeks the saving rays of the lighthouse to safely guide it through the stormy waters of travel.
In my law enforcement days, the dark of the night always seemed to cast a different appearance on events that in daylight were otherwise approached with less scrutiny and apprehension. Early on with the application of crime prevention which advocated proactive in lieu of reactive delivery of law enforcement services I was introduced to ‘target hardening’. This hardening included the application of light which was and still is an effective tool in the crime prevention arsenal. Simply applied the bad guys are less likely to operate in the well illuminated environments – more likely to hang and lurk in the dark and darkened areas to stalk and commit their criminal offenses. Darkness provides cover, hiding and obscuring the perpetrator while the effects of light on the same situation is very obvious – things visible, seen, detected, observed etc.
In the Gospel today again, as we’ve read before, we see Christ as the Light. In Him we find the way – the alternative to dark/darkness. Christ came as our sonshine bringing light to mankind affording us the opportunity to move from the darkness of evil in our lives to that of our Creator’s light. We are offered a way in Christ as our saving ray – our lighthouse - to guide us through the stormy evil filled waters of life. Just as the perpetrator seeks the dark we seek Christ the light to pull us from the dark to eternal life with the Father. Evil is attractive, the darkness of evil plays to our pleasure(s) keeping us from the light in which we see evil for what it is. Christ our lighthouse stands out solid and strong casting the ray of guidance, hope, safety and security to we the travelers in the ocean of life.