NIGHT SEEMS FOREVER by Larry Patten

I asked my friend Michael, who knows more practical and essential information than me, why winter’s so cold and dark.

“Because the Earth tilts.”

Usually, I can whup Michael at Trivial Pursuit. I know the stars of the original Ocean’s 11 film, and that Rutherford B. Hayes was the president following U.S. Grant, and what the Biblical number 666 really means . . . but Michael knows stuff that matters.

So I believed him. Since then, I’ve looked it up. In the northern hemisphere’s winter, the tilted Earth angles away from the sun. Of course it’s darker. Colder. Truth be told, the southern hemisphere gang believes we northerners have it all backwards. Regardless of your hemisphere, everyone’s traveling through space near 67,000 miles per hour . . . and it’s the tilt that separates summer from winter.

Of course, dark and cold occur at other times of the year.

During one summer a few years ago my wife and I welcomed our extremely laconic teenaged nephew from Wisconsin into our home. Growing up, he happily and frequently pushed his parents’ buttons. So he headed west to give his mother and father a break. In other words, it was a vacation without leaving town to preserve parental sanity.

Take him to a ballgame . . . check. Monterey Bay Aquarium . . . check. Fishing along the San Joaquin River . . . check. We decided to whisk him to Yosemite, an overnight trip to experience the granite glory of the mountains. In Wisconsin they call mountains objects-found-in-other-states. Wouldn’t a sojourn to what naturalist John Muir proclaimed “the Range of Light” be a treat for a cheesehead kid?

We reserved a tent cabin at one of my favorite Yosemite spots: White Wolf Lodge. At almost 8,000 feet, it’s not far from Tuolumne Meadows. A nylon roof over our head. A pot-bellied stove for heat. Nearby lakes to hike to and fish in. Dirt. Trees. What more do you need?

Our nephew asked, “Can I watch my favorite wrestling show tonight?”

This was one of his first questions after he surveyed the sparsely furnished cabin. Though I hadn’t known before, he apparently was a huge fan of televised wrestling.

“Sorry,” I said, “No television.”

“What about at the lodge?” he asked, obviously in a talkative mood.

“Well, there’s not really a lodge at this place. It’s just a few cabins and a campground. In fact, there’s no TV anywhere.”

Silence. Then, “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Over there.” I gestured toward a nondescript wooden structure several hundred feet across an open expanse of ground. “We share a common bathroom with the other cabins.”

Grim look. Not one to trust adults, he repeated, “But what about television?”

I don’t remember now if it was my compassionate wife or me (trying to smile and not smirk) that answered, “Well, even if there was television—and there’s not—the electricity is turned off at night. Everything here is run by generators and--”

“Huh? No lights at night?”

“No, but we have flashlights. The generators are shut down and--”

“Soooo, if I have to use those bathrooms at night, it will be all dark?”

I paused, and then said, “Totally, completely dark. And you’ll have to watch out for the bears.” (I couldn’t resist saying that. I just couldn’t.)

My nephew, skinny and soon-to-be taller than me, glared outside. Light now. But dark soon enough.

In the dark—for modern mid-western teenagers or first-century denizens—there is uncertainty and potential doom. In the dark, whether in the literal open spaces of meadows or conjured within our anxious minds, fierce and fantastic bears shadow our steps. La noche oscura del alma, the Spanish mystic St. John the Cross famously wrote. In Spanish, or any other language, there is always the “dark night of the soul.”

The grand opening of John’s Gospel isn’t like Matthew or Luke’s “Christmas story” except for one thing: darkness. On the third Sunday of Advent, with the lectionary containing Isaiah’s longings and the Psalmist’s dreams, the Gospel reading drags John the Baptizer front and center. In his brief appearance, the Baptizer declared he was “not the light.”

But it would soon arrive.

At wintertime the Earth, as if embarrassed, leans away from the sun. My friend Michael and all astrophysicists are correct. We spin ‘round our solar star, tilted back, and the days shorten and night seems forever. And yet honest Advent brazenly declares light will come. In spring’s promise. From the child not yet center stage. We hurl through space at 67,000 miles an hour. Belief is better than a seatbelt.

Our nephew survived the mountains. Overall, I think he had a swell time. And maybe, just maybe, his life of televised wrestling and easy-access bathrooms was tilted. Nice guy that I am, I let him borrow my flashlight before we went to bed.

No bears were seen or heard.

At least, none that he mentioned the next bright and shiny day.

in Peace,

Larry

In the season of ADVENT - Written on December 5, 2008

For the Lectionary of December 14, 2008: John 1:6-8, 19-28

“(John) himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.”