#88

Friday night, I walked the streets with my husband, my son and some newly met friends from Church. We visited the art gallery for a local show greeted by community members in cosplay as the Krampus- a dark counterpart to the saint memorialized for gifts. We kept our tiny one away from the half-demon and half-goat costumery to keep his thoughts and dreams free of the dark imagery. It worked. We asked him what he thought of the people pretending to be bad guys and he said "they're kind of scary." And so the night went. Saturday night, we returned as a family of three to the same downtown streets for a lighting of the community Christmas tree. My husband, always the claustrophobe, took the stairs in the parking garage and I teased him for being scared of the elevator. My son loves elevators, so in we went and pushed the button, and there was my husband on the ground floor, waiting for us. We giggled as a family and found our way, a little early, to the tree-lighting. We enjoyed the lights in the adjacent park, took a family selfie, and cheered as the Mayor and his grand-daughter turned on the Christmas tree. We asked our son if he wanted to stay for a picture with Santa. "Umm, no thanks," he replied. "He's kind of weird." We walked back to the car as a family. Little one asked what the button with the firefighter's hat was for and I told him, "It's so people can get help if they need it. But we only press it in times when someone really needs help." "Okay," he cheered, as his Dad appeared at the opening elevator door. Sunday night, I read an opinion letter in the local newspaper. A member of the religion I profess tried to explain the importance of human life inelegantly. My mother soul longed for the children I've lost, the time I thought I would die, so I wrote a letter back, asking for empathy and kindess as those claiming Christ wade into the messy debate about abortion. Wednesday night, in the same little city, the same block, the same elevator, someone I-don't-know-if-I-know was raped, by a man with identified twin demons of schizophrenia, and methamphetamine addiction. The darkness runs deeper than the coming solstice. Another woman opened the elevator door, exposing darkness with light. Thursday night, in the only local newspaper, I read about the crime. Pray with me for the women: violently victimized and a brave-enough upstander. My empath soul weeps with the woman who opened the door of the elevator to witness a crime and had to make an immediate choice that allowed everyone involved to live. The woman attacked described fear of dying, of never seeing her children. The darkness in the story is so thick you can reach and hold it in your fingers. This is the tension of Advent, the waiting, the darkness longing for hope. Sin is real and fights and tries to destroy and kill and rob families. Krampus and St. Nicholas are fiction, but characters personifying darkness and light. Oh Jesus, come. Let Light win. Let Life win.