The Candle of Love

For God so loved the world… Oh, to be in love with the world. As it is. Today. I think this is sorely lacking. To love is to have hope, to seek peace, to be open to joy. To love the world, even in it brokenness. I fear we have lost the thread and no longer know how to love the world. We know how to criticize. We too often focus on the wounds and eclipse the wonders. It has been a year of political posts and pundit posturing. This is not love. This is fear. This is not lifting up the best in us.

No one know what lays ahead. No one. At best we can trace the patterns of yesterday and predict tomorrow. We can entrain to the darkest and miss the light. We can see everything through the eyes of fear and constrict the heart. I am so weary of the fear being the lens. Fear of tyranny. Fear of change. Fear of fear. I vote for love.

“If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.”

Joanna Macy, The Work that Reconnects.

We can fear change, uncertainty, the unknown, and feed the anxiety that grows to panic, or we can love. Love our enemies. Love ourselves. Love the world. When we fall in love with the world everything changes. Everything. This is far from naivete. This is courageous. I sit in my analytical chair hour after hour and try to love the world back to balance. One human heart at a time. I love my people so that they can love themselves again. Even in the pain. Even in the suffering. Even in the darkness. Some days are easier than others. Some stories softer than others. Some pain less sharp than others. But, the real heavy lifting is when things seem the bleakest and we love anyway. We love the capacity in the human soul to endure.

On Saturday last, the light was born again. Out of the coldest and darkest time of the year, here in the Northern hemisphere, the sun tipped the balance toward light. And, darkness yielded. This is more than symbolic. This is repetitive. Every year. Every day. With each breath we take. This is the promise. For God so loved the world…

I open up my news feed and read the political pundits and social doom experts. I read how dark things are and how dark they are expected to become. I see the axiomatic presuppositions that the lens is clear and these experts and their minions are accurate pattern readers. I am almost seduced into their fear. I almost fall out of love with the world. And then, unexpectedly, a single candle is held up and the darkness vanishes. Read that again. A single candle! I think it comes down to whether you dedicate your efforts to loving the world or not. It is that simple. Really.

I learned yesterday about the canonization on December 18, 2024 of the 16 Martyrs of Compiègne. These devout religious women sang even as they were carted through the streets of Paris and then climbed the scaffold steps to the guillotine. During this Reign of Terror, these women were not terrorized. They sang the Salve Regina even whilst they were silenced by the blade. Where does that courage come from? French Catholics of the time believed that the public executions of the nuns "helped bring about the end to the horrors of the revolution" and hastened the end of the Reign of Terror. There have been too many reigns of terror in human history. The Angel of Death in Egypt, the Slaughter of the Innocents in Bethlehem, Bloody Sunday, Pogroms, Holocausts, Terror of Mao, Wounded Knee, Sandy Hook,…

To sing over the dun of terror. To love in spite of so many reasons to hate. To hold the candle of hope and peace and joy and love against the encroaching darkness. To not share the meme. To not repeat the gossip. To not feed the fear. To not lose faith. To not be terrorized. To not project onto anyone what need be examined in your own heart.

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

One small bridgehead of good is retained…. One small bridgehead of hope. One small bridgehead of peace. One small bridgehead of joy. One small bridgehead of love. The four candles of Advent: Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. Be that candle. Be that one small bridgehead. Against the terror. Against the fear.

One song…

Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae;

Vita, dulcedo et spes nostra salve.

Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae.

Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes

in hac lacrimarum valle.

Eia ergo, advocata nostra,

illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.

Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,

nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.

O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria.

Queen, mother of mercy:

our life, sweetness, and hope, hail.

To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve.

To you we sigh, mourning and weeping

in this valley of tears.

Turn then, our advocate,

those merciful eyes

toward us.

And Jesus, the blessed fruit of thy womb,

after our exile, show us.

O clement, O loving, O sweet

Virgin Mary.