Have you ever experienced a blackout? I don’t mean the kind that happen in the daytime where you can still see around or the kind they get in California in the summer called ‘rolling blackouts’ that are scheduled. I mean the kind you get when it is a dark and stormy night. Raining hard with wind. A major blackout happens because of the storm and there are no lights. No street lights, no television, no radio. You try to see in the dark but can’t. You hear a loved one fall and cry out for help. You try to find a flashlight but the batteries are dead. You grab a candle but can’t find the matches and your loved one really needs your help but you can’t find them. The fear and panic that grips your emotions. You can’t think straight and you make mistakes and now you are hurt as well.

Have I painted a picture in your mind? That panic that causes shortness of breath and panic attacks. You just need a light. Even the light of a match would do, you just need some kind of light. That is what I see for our country right now. What was once good is now bad and what was bad is now good. Our country is in the midst of darkness and we just need a light. But we have driven the light out of our lives kicked him out of our schools, driven him out of our courts and halls of justice. We have eliminated the light from our holidays, our Pledge of Allegiance. We have made fun of those that try to spread the light, hold the light up and share the peace and calm that comes with the light. We as a nation have said we no longer need the light and yet wonder why we flounder around in the dark and get hurt.

Man, without the light, is prone to darkness. Like the roach invading your kitchen that scampers away in the light, we too hide our ugliness in the dark. The dark lures us in and invites others into the dark for company. The darkness is afraid of the light because the darkness knows its ugliness. Darkness spreads and life withers away in the total darkness. Only the light brings life. In the light, there is peace. We must remember that when we drive out the light, only darkness abides. The darkness is within us. It is around us.