by Teri Ong
There is a kind of brain fog that comes on me in the middle of winter. I don’t know if it is because I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) – No, really! This is my own Alphabet Soup affliction which is due to low light in the winter. Maybe it is brought on by vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunlight on the skin. Maybe it is brought on by everything being in black and white (i.e. bare tree limbs on snow background, mucky asphalt on snow background, dirty buildings and cars on snow background, etc.). By this time of year it is hard to escape the mental lassitude that is akin to the partial hibernation that some animals enjoy during the darkest and coldest of days.
The good news for me is that the darkest days of the year are over– the six weeks leading up to winter solstice and the six weeks after. Once again there is natural light when I get up in the morning. Soon there will be buds on the trees, and they will be green!
Tuesday of this week I did see the most glorious atmospheric effect that I have seen in a long time. It was very cold– hovering around zero– and there was morning fog low to the ground. When the sun came full out, the fog froze in the air. The sky was that intense shade of blue that is nearly unique to Colorado in the winter, the sun was bright, and the air was full of sparkles. I say “sparkles” because the little frozen bits of cloud were not flaky or white at all– they were simply “sparkles.” And they filled the air. It was as if someone gathered up all the glittery bits from the snow on the ground and threw them into the air. I thought of C. S. Lewis’s description of Ransom’s experience in deep space when he realized that he was surrounded by the brightness of heavenly spirit beings (Out of the Silent Planet). I was glad I did not miss experiencing such a wonder of God’s creativity.
I am not the only one on the planet affected negatively by low light. Alexander Aciman, in today’s (1-31-14) Wall Street Journal bemoaned the end of the incandescent light bulb– no longer to be produced as of 1-1-14. He described in words I understand experientially how CFLs induce “a sort of drowsy numbness” and LEDs a nauseating “dull light.” He says about them, “…LEDs and CFLs are a kind of modern day miracle: Somehow they produce a light that is at once harsh and very dim. It’s like seasonal affective disorder crammed into a tiny bulb.” (“Tender Is the Light of My Incandescents” –p. A11) Aciman is spot on. LEDs have taken all the fun out of driving around town looking at the Christmas lights. Every tree seems to be dressed in bluish-white or dark purple pin-point lights that make it hard to focus– as if your eyes were trying to decide whether to rely on the rods or the cones for seeing in the dark.
I am not the only one on the planet suffering from lassitude either. Today’s WSJ also had articles about how significantly fewer young people are participating in team sports (p. A1) and how fewer farm women are participating in “Food Festival” beauty contests (p. A1). It seems that more and more children are unwilling to make the personal sacrifices to undergo the rigors of team sports when they aren’t likely to be able to play very many minutes in a real game, or when they aren’t talented enough to be considered “star athlete” material. They would rather stay home and have the instantaneous, albeit vicarious thrill of victory in the latest video game. We are raising a nation of “virtual sportsmen.”
In the case of the dearth of down-home beauty contestants, the problem seems to be that fewer women are willing to shell out money for entrance fees, evening gowns, shoes, salon services, etc., for the privilege of being crowned “Asparagus Queen,” “Ohio Beef Queen,” “Louisiana Pecan Queen” etc. Even though some of these contests are only open to married women, I would probably only qualify to be “Mrs. Pear Queen” or “Mrs. Mango Queen.” I don’t think anyone will be trying to recruit me for the privilege. But then again, what’s a contest without contestants? If Miss Piggy can become “Miss Bogen County,” there is a glimmer of hope for me! But that glimmer is probably about equivalent to one dark purple LED Christmas bulb.
That LED glimmer is about the same amount of hope that I have for the near-term political well-being of our country. A couple days ago President Obama gave his “State of the Union” speech, which has been hailed from many quarters as particularly forgettable. The only thing memorable to me was his declaration of using executive fiat more often to carry out his own will for the country. And that is a chilling memory. I laughed very hard this morning when a local talk show host replayed the “Lie-Witness News” segment from a TV program wherein a lady interviewer elicited opinions from men and women “on the street” about what they thought of the President’s speech. The catch was that he had not given the speech at the time of the interviews. All of the people interviewed lied through their teeth and gave a variety of opinions based on nothing but the leading questions of the interviewer. The four minute segment was hysterically funny and frightening at the same time. To me it was one more indication of the deep winter spiritual darkness that is over our country. We need God to come into our cave and turn on some full-spectrum incandescent lights to get us all going again.
The “Church” in America seems to me to be the spiritual equivalent of LEDs – cold technology running on as little energy as possible – adding to the drowsiness and lassitude of Christians, and making it hard for non-Christians to focus or to care. The New Testament church was metaphorically compared to a lamp on a lamp stand (Rev. 1-3). Lamps in that day had to be filled with oil and set on fire. The oil would be consumed in the process of giving off light and heat and would need to be replenished on a regular basis. Light– real light– the kind that brightens our eyes and warms us body and soul– is associated with expenditure of energy.
I believe the Holy Spirit would fill us and light us, but we would rather keep on sleeping in the darkness, with only an LED night light here and there to keep us from hurting ourselves too badly when we do try to move about a little. Our church has begun watching a twelve-week series about living the Christian life motivated by truly knowing God, called “Behold Your God” by John Snyder. Christians who come to know God in the way Snyder teaches will perhaps come to understand it is time to get out the candles and the oil lamps and be expended in burning brightly during the spiritual winter of our nation.
If sleepers are awakened after several decades of spiritual hibernation, some may sadly be like the polar bear in one of the episodes of Planet Earth that didn’t have enough energy left to overcome its prey and ultimately died of starvation. But by God’s grace, some may be energized and revitalized for a spring thaw of Narnian proportions.
Brightly beams our Father’s mercy 
From His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.
Dark the night of sin has settled,
Loud the angry billows roar;
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.
Trim your feeble lamp, my brother!
Some poor sailor tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.
Let the lower lights be burning!
Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.
–Philip Paul Bliss (1838-1876)
Post Script
I went out to lunch with my friend Linda on Wednesday. When we got into her car, I noticed a 6×6 Post-it note attached to the passenger side window. I could tell (with my Grammy eyes) that it was of childish origin.
She explained to me that her four-year-old grandson had made it for her on one of their rides together in the car. He had artfully and graciously drawn a squiggly “map” with a marker. He explained that the map was so she would not forget the way home.
On the other side he had written down all of the letters she dictated to him as he asked, “How do you spell ‘grandma’? How do you spell ‘grandpa’? How do you spell ‘mom’?” Etc. When she asked him why he was writing down everyone’s name, he replied, “This is so you won’t forget anyone in the family.”
I thought about what was important to that little boy – who was in the family, and the way back home. Those things are the most important to all of God’s children as well. We need to remember who our Father is, and Christ, our brother. And the way Home is always up!
