Who creates light — יוֹצֵר אוֹר

It’s Advent, and although I usually blog the Sundays in Advent I haven’t felt much like writing about that this year. Frankly, the news is just too depressing and yeah, as an inveterate news junkie, I probably read too much of it. When I read yet more details of what has happened in San Bernardino (and elsewhere) I become sadder and sadder for all of us — for a country that refuses to get its gun problem under control, for a world that refuses to get its refugee problem under control, for individuals who can’t get their religion problems of all stripes under control (so if you are thinking I am pointing my finger at Muslims, I’m not, I’m pointing at any of us who use religion as a reason to harm others — there are plenty of Christians and Jews who do this too and for all I know Buddhists and Hindus and so on), for people who seem to have to be mean for sport, to people who are so sensitive that they are provoked by every possible piece of meanness, sometimes to extreme reactions. For all the unmet need in the universe of every kind and all the evil that scarcity, most of which we make for ourselves, seems to provoke.

Sigh.

Most guiltily — sometimes I feel jealous of people who just let go of all of that negative emotion. One of the things that I resent about being an adult is the need to be an adult at all times.

This morning I was sitting in my favorite bagel shop here (a ritual which seems to have replaced the synagogue on Saturday mornings) observing a mother dressing her five-year-old daughter down for something-or-other, and someone yelling at the bagelista for making the wrong order and being out of Asiago bagels. I was reading the local paper, which was announcing a coming performance of the Hallelujah chorus. The article I read referred to the custom of standing during the Hallelujah chorus — and I just burst into sobs. Yeah, I know, the kitschiest classical music choice ever, and still.

I believe there are eternal forces in the world that shall reign forever and ever. I believe there are experiences that might draw us (or at least some of us) together, and I believe they still happen and can happen.

That force in the universe who forms light, please bring us light. Help me bring light.

[With apologies to Händel, this is actually the first movement of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.]

~ by Servetus on December 6, 2015.