The Coming of Darkness

 The Coming of Darkness

By Bobby Neal Winters

I struggle with the coming darkness.

Intellectually, I know it is a cycle.  We are on a speck of dust that goes in a circle around a point of light in an unbelievably vast cosmos that is full of darkness.

Our speck of dust is round and spins like a ball around an axis. That axis is at an angle with respect to the plane of the orbit it circles in.  We are at a point in the orbit where our end of the axis is pointing away from the sun. 

It is getting darker, and it’s not going to be getting better for a while.

This is the time of the year where we think about the Dead.

The Dead, the ones who have gone before us, our ancestors, our progenitors.

I think this has been going on a long time.

The Celts used to mark it in a festival called Samhain.  For some reason, the folks who introduced the Roman alphabet to the Celts got particularly creative, and Samhain is pronounced savin in Irish Gaelic, sawin in Scots Gaelic, and sauin in Manx.  Maybe it’s not the Romans’ fault, the Celts have been known to be a little contrary.

It turns out that the Christian Church marks All Saints Day about the same time.  I don’t know whether this is just a happy accident or whether the Church was trying to put a more positive spin on the festivities marking the Dead.

The Dead become the Saints.  They are not something to be feared; they are something to be celebrated.  We don’t huddle in fear away from them; we sing songs to honor them:

For all the saints who from their labors rest,

who Thee by faith before the world confessed;

Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

Death becomes a thing not to be feared, but a rest well-earned.

In England, at least at one time, All Saints’ Day was called All Hallows, so that the evening before the day of All Hallows was Halloween.

Though the fearsome Dead become the comforting Saints, and Death not something to put is into terror, but something that we will ultimately embrace, I am reminded of a line from Game of Thrones: “And what do we say to Death: Not today!”

The weather as I write this is perfect for the contemplation of Death.  It is dark; it is cloudy and raining; it is cold.  As I type this, my hands are cold.  As cold as a corpse’s.

That is something that I do know.  When I am passing the open casket at a visitation or funeral, I will sometimes reach out and touch the body, touch their hand.  I only do this with people who I would’ve done this with when they were alive.

I do it because I remember a member of my family--one of my uncles who is gone himself now--saying he did it. You touch the hand to let yourself know they are gone now.  The hand is as cold as clay, the clay from which Adam was made, the clay that God animated with his breath.  That life is gone now.

Maybe God lets our hands and feet get so cold when we are old as a reminder.  It’s like the bartender announcing, “Last call for alcohol!”

If you are going to do something, do it.

The darkness will continue to fall until about Christmas when it will be announced that the children who have lived in darkness have seen a great light.

But that is a while away.

Until then, it will be getting darker and the time-change will take an hour of daylight from the evening and give it back to the morning from whom it was borrowed.

Our evenings will become long and inky black, as dark as the grave.

We can, we should think about Death, but we are not to be afraid.  Think about the Saints; think about those who’ve been here before us that we remember.  We remember them because we loved them. We loved them because they loved us. 

Our love will keep us alive in memory.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.