Saturday, December 26, 1998

A season of dark and light for major religions

By DAVID WATERS

Scripps Howard News Service

This is the season of darkness and light.

Darkness comes earlier, stays longer and feels colder. Days this week are the shortest of the year.

Thank God for the light.

Light is abundant this time of year, especially this year.

Today, for the first time in decades, three major holidays are converging.

Christians are preparing to celebrate Christmas and the birth of their Savior. On the fourth Sunday of Advent, they lighted all four candles on the Advent Wreath, and they will remember.

"A light has come into the world," it says in the New Testament.

Jews are celebrating their faith's ancient victory over oppression and lighting the candles on the Menorah.

"People walking in darkness have seen a great light," it says in the Hebrew Scriptures.

This is also the holy month of Ramadan.

Muslims are celebrating the revelation of their faith. From sunrise to sunset, they fast and pray, and they remember.

"God is the light of the Heavens and the Earth," it says in the Koran.

These holidays rarely align.

Hanukkah shifts around in late December. Ramadan, based on a lunar calendar, rotates through the year. Both overlap with Christmas week once every 30 years or so.

Fortunately, this is one of those years.

We need more light.

This year was especially dark in many places.

Children killed children in Jonesboro, Ark., and Springfield, Ore.

Hate killed a doctor in New York, a student in Wyoming.

Nature destroyed with a hurricane in Honduras, wildfires in Florida, tornadoes in Nashville.

There was a shootout in the Capitol and scandal in the White House.

There were atrocities in Kosovo, riots in Indonesia, bombings in Kenya, Tanzania and Israel.

Now, our elected officials are hurling missiles at Iraq and articles of impeachment at each other.

Misery and death visited too many doors in 1998.

Some of this year's victims would have lit Advent candles this week. Others would have lit Hanukkah candles. Others would have fasted at sunrise.

This week won't be as bright as it should have been, but it will be bright enough to see where we came from, and where we can go.

During these holidays, remember what Moses, the son of slaves, learned in Egypt.

Remember what Paul, as the persecutor Saul, learned on the road to Damascus.

Remember what Muhammad, persecuted for his belief in One God, learned on the road to Medina.

The light is more powerful than the dark.

The light is eternal.

"Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies," Psalm 36 tells us.

"In your light we see light."

That light will be everywhere this week. We will see it in its purest form in the faces of our children.

They share the light.

They absorb it.

No matter how dark it gets, look for that light. Follow it. Embrace it. That's where you'll find the hope.

Happy holidays.

Better yet, hopeful holy days.

(David Waters writes this column for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis.)