Turn Out the Lights Sunday, December 04, 2016

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1 1 Turn Out the Lights Sunday, December 04, 2016 Even from outer space you can see the lights. In 2012 NASA released images of the earth at night, satellite images mapped onto the globe. They called the images The Black Marble echoing the Blue Marble photo of the earth from 1972, but it s not really black. Over all the continents bursts of light shine out, none brighter or more concentrated than those emanating from the United States. So it s no surprise that a recent study finds that 1 in 3 human beings can no longer see the Milky Way. And in the US you re even less likely to see that glowing band. Light pollution hides it from 80% of us. But there are places where it s even harder to see the stars or any darkness at all for that matter. In Singapore, for instance, researchers found that "the entire population lives under skies so bright that the eye cannot fully dark-adapt to night vision." As Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote in National Geographic a few years ago, For most of human history, the phrase "light pollution" would have made no sense. Imagine walking toward London on a moonlit night around 1800, when it was Earth's most populous city. Nearly a million people lived there, making do, as they always had, with candles and rushlights and torches and lanterns. From a few miles away, you would have been as likely to smell London as to see its dim collective glow. Now most of humanity lives under intersecting domes of reflected, refracted light, of scattering rays from overlit cities and suburbs, from light-flooded highways and factories. Nearly all of nighttime Europe is a nebula of light, as is most of the United States and all of Japan.... In most cities the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, leaving behind a vacant haze that mirrors our fear of the dark and resembles the urban glow of dystopian science fiction. We've grown so used to this pervasive orange haze that the original glory of an unlit night dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadows on Earth is wholly beyond our experience, beyond memory almost. And yet above the city's pale ceiling lies the rest of the universe, utterly undiminished by the light we waste a bright shoal of stars and planets and galaxies, shining in seemingly infinite darkness. And light pollution doesn t just affect our outer view. It has changed our understanding of our own lives, what it means to be human, and how we relate to

2 the world around us. It has disrupted our connection to what Dylan Thomas called the close and holy darkness. Yes, in pre-electric times, the night was a scary time, but it was also a time, as one scholar of darkness phrased it, when human beings were opened to visions, and play, and tenderness, and sleep, and dreams. This scholar, a Jesuit historian of technology named John Staudenmaier, wrote this in his essay Electric Lights Cast Long Shadows. He begins by going back to the Bible and its understanding of the dark as holy. In the very beginning, in the first chapter of Genesis, that hymn of creation, the poet pictures darkness as the basis of all life. All that existed was darkness and the spirit of God. In Genesis, the light comes from the darkness and both are pronounced good. In the darkness come the dreams which guide the heroes and heroines to journeys they did not plan: Jacob sees a ladder connecting the earth and the heavens; Samuel hears God calling him to prophecy; Joseph perceives in a dream that Mary, though pregnant, has not betrayed him and decides not to break their engagement; the magi, being warned in a dream that Herod is not what he seems, go home from Bethlehem by another route. Without darkness and its dreams where and who would we be? But darkness also helps us learn to sit with uncertainty and lack of clarity literally lack of light. Before electric lights, people didn t travel after dark. It was too dangerous. Night was a time of waiting, not pushing through. Night helped us to remember that we are not in control. And it offered a time of connection both connecting with the people within your household, but also of making new connections think of the stories of travelers knocking on a stranger s door as darkness falls and asking for shelter for the night. Many cultures held hospitality as a sacred practice because they knew that we all at one time or another would need to its protection. And welcoming the stranger into your firelight brought gifts to the host - news of other places, of other ways of doing things, other stories. Darkness in that way became a time of seeing. As Chet Raymo wrote, The night is our window on the infinite. But the coming of electric light curtained the window. The ability to have the lights on 24/7 has deprived us not only of sleep, but it has disconnected us from those values of waiting, hospitality, and inner knowing. As Clark Strand, the guru of darkness, wrote in an article in the Buddhist publication Tricycle, Religious social critics sometimes lament the loss of spiritual consciousness in an age of 24-7 cable television, Twitter, and the World Wide Web. But they are coming into the argument much too late in the game. These things were already inevitable once the incandescent light bulb had come into common use. 2

3 3 Though its significance is seldom remarked upon by historians, this was the spiritual tipping point that would eventually guarantee the excesses of the twentieth century, from world wars to climate change to the widespread pollution of rivers, lakes, and streams. All of these spring directly from the overflow of human consciousness, for which the rising flood of electric light is both the metaphor and the means. Advances in science, industry, communication, and nearly every other area of human enterprise resulted from the influx of good, cheap light like nothing the world had ever seen a brightness never rivaled by tallow, oil, or gas. It created a kind of universal optimism, a belief in unimpeded growth and progress, the expectation that, going forward, all would eventually become clear. The only casualty in that ongoing conquest of night seemed to be darkness, a thing of little value, an absence really, a blank space on the canvas of eternity that we could fill in as we pleased. So how can we turn off the light? First, literally. The International Dark Sky Association yes, there is such a thing suggests beginning at home. Make sure that your outdoor lighting is of the proper wattage and only illuminating what is necessary. When you buy new lighting, look for the International Dark Sky seal of approval lighting with the IDA seal of approval are certified to minimize glare, light trespass and skyglow. Let others know about the ill effects of light pollution and invite them to join you in the dark. Within the home, try to get off screens in the hours before bed. Instead of spending your evening with Rachel Maddow or Candy Crush or Solitaire, read a book, write a letter on paper, listen to music, or go outside and look at the sky. Try eating dinner by candlelight. Let your eyes become accustomed to the night and your spirit too. There s a quiet that comes with the darkness that nourishes us and brings peace. And if the dark holds monsters for you right now, reach out and ask someone to sit with you in it. Or just go to sleep earlier. Before we had gas and electric light, scientists believe our sleep rhythms were very different from what we now think they should be. People didn t expect a solid eight hours. Instead, they d sleep for about 4 or 5 hours, wake up, perhaps eat something, talk, reflect, and then go back to sleep for another 4 to 5 hours. So they actually got more sleep just in different blocks. But this rhythm took about 12 hours. Scientists think that once electric light came along, allowing all this time for sleep was considered unproductive and it got pushed into one tidy chunk. But when light is restricted for people in sleep studies, after a few days, they fall naturally into this rhythm. Another good reason to try having our committees meet after church on a Sunday instead of in the evening!

4 So those are literal ways to let the darkness in. Now for the metaphorical ones- you knew that was coming since this is a sermon, not a lecture. Sometimes sitting with spiritual darkness is much scarier than sitting with the physical one. Often when we turn off the actual lights, those inner fears take over. When that happens, try to sit with those fears. Where do you feel it in your body? When else do you feel that way? What stories help you with the fear? What might you learn from them? Breathe. In her lovely book Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story of a night alone in an old house when she woke in terror, certain that there was something menacing on the other side of the door. She lay frozen, eyes wide open, until the sun rose and the terror dissipated. Looking back though, she wishes she d had the courage to open the door to see what was there and what it had to teach her. If the fear keeps coming back, talk to someone. We re not meant to go through inner or outer darkness alone. This is one of the reasons for religious community. Here we share our nightmares and night terrors as well as our visions and our dreams. We practice being at home in the darkness and the light. This is the spiritual path of the mystics. Christians call it the Via Negativa, Buddhists, the way of No-thing. Instead of pushing to find the light, the positive, in all situations, we recognize that life contains sadness as well as joy, that to find our way we must lose it, that we gain insight when we realize we know not, that doubt and uncertainty open the door to greater trust and faith. And I think that not only does each of us individually need to sit with the No-thing, perhaps nationally we need to sit with it as well. Since our presidential election, so many feel fear for the present and the future, as if we re living in a nightmare someone said to me yesterday. But many people of differing views and experiences have sat in this fear long before the current election. What can we learn from entering this darkness with them? Are there ways it can connect us to others who also feel they sit in darkness but sit with different fears? Are there truths we can perceive in this darkness which we couldn t see in the light? Centuries ago, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed to people enslaved, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined. And in our own time, the poet Theodore Roethke prophesied, In a dark time, the eye begins to see. What will you see if you turn off the light? What dreams will come? What new paths might you find yourself on? What unknown stars may appear in your night skies? How might these stars become our neighbors, our kinsmen, our children? Shall we learn to walk in the dark together? - Pamela M. Barz 4

5 5 Readings On That Night by Zelda (Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky) On that night, as I sat alone in the still courtyard, and gazed at the stars-- I resolved in my heart-- I almost took a vow-- to devote every evening one moment, a single tiny moment, to this shining beauty. It would seem that there is nothing easier than this, simpler than this, still I haven't kept up my oath to myself. Why? Why haven't I kept my oath to myself? Did I not believe that if I gazed one tiny moment at the heights of the starry skies, my mind would carry to the palace the light of the constellations. Did I not believe that if I gazed so night after night, the stars would slowly slowly become my neighbors. The stars would become my kinsmen. The stars would become my children. Why haven't I kept my oath to myself? On that night, when I sat alone in the silent courtyard, I discovered suddenly that my house too was built on the shore, that I live on the bank of the moon and the constellations, on the bank of sunrises and sunsets. Bring On the Dark: Why We Need the Winter Solstice by Clark Strand Dec. 19, 2014 NYT Tomorrow is the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. But few of us will turn off the lights long enough to notice. There s no getting away from the light. There are fluorescent lights and halogen lights, stadium lights, streetlights, stoplights, headlights and billboard lights. There are night lights to stand sentinel in hallways, and the lit screens of cellphones to feed our addiction to information, even in the middle of the night. No wonder we have trouble sleeping. The lights are always on. Beginning in the late 19th century, the availability of cheap, effective lighting extended the range of waking human consciousness, effectively adding more hours onto the day for work, for entertainment, for discovery, for consumption; for

6 6 every activity except sleep, that nightly act of renunciation. Darkness was the only power that has ever put the human agenda on hold. Advances in science, industry, medicine and nearly every other area of human enterprise resulted from the influx of light. The only casualty was darkness, a thing of seemingly little value. But that was only because we had forgotten what darkness was for. In times past people took to their beds at nightfall, but not merely to sleep. They touched one another, told stories and, with so much night to work with, woke in the middle of it to a darkness so luxurious it teased visions from the mind and divine visitations that helped to guide their course through life. Now that deeper darkness has turned against us. The hour of the wolf we call it that predatory insomnia that makes billions for big pharma. It was once the hour of God. We ve rolled back the night so far that soon we will come full circle and reach the dawn of the following day. And where will that leave us? In a world with no God and no wolf either only unrelenting commerce and consumption, information and media... and light. We need a rest from ourselves that only a night like the winter solstice can give us. And the earth, too, needs that rest.

The Light of Christmas: the Wonder of Light Pastor Jon Haakana. Merry Christmas! Tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the light of the world.

The Light of Christmas: the Wonder of Light Pastor Jon Haakana Merry Christmas! Tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the light of the world. How many of you have a tree with lights on it at home? How