Be the Light

October 11, 2018 katbernhardt@mac.com

It’s easy to say, but hard to do. The struggle between light and darkness faces every human on the earth and doesn’t end just because you’ve had a Scrooge epiphany and are eager to bring good things to others wherever you go. It’s constant and not easy. Darkness doesn’t go away. It will always try to pull us into it like a black hole. One of life’s missions is to fight against the darkness and be the light.

Last night, Irish priest Father O’Connor’s Christmas Eve message at St. Mary’s Basilica in Natchez, Mississippi was one of the most practical I’ve heard. Jesus was born to bring light into the world and we are asked to follow that example. What is one way that you can bring light to one other person today? Is there any way that you are bringing darkness to someone? If so, how can you change that? Who can you forgive? Who can you encourage?

Hope and fear pull our hearts until we don’t want to care anymore. Giving up doesn’t help anyone. Because in the end and for all eternity the battle is not equal. Light conquers darkness. We can place our hope in knowing there is no darkness so deep that light will not reach. Don’t give up hope. Be the light.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,” John 1:5.

May the light of God’s great and unending love shine through you today no matter what darkness you face. Merry Christmas!

A hopeful angel in the Natchez Cemetery.

St. Mary’s Basilica in Natchez, Mississippi.

The gardens of St. Mary’s Basilica are very beautiful.

Dan photographs the Turning Angel in the Natchez Cemetery, so called because she appears to be turning when you drive past on Cemetery Road. Note the Confederate cemetery in the foreground.

The Turning Angel honors the five young women who died in an explosion at the Natchez Drug Company on March 14, 1908.

I joined the gatherers on the steps of the First Presbyterian Church to sing Christmas carols. The church was built in 1830 and has a grand, Greek architecture. It was 50 degrees and a bit windy. Everyone kept saying it was so cold.

Christmas Eve light over the Mississippi.

On the way back to the hotel, we got to drive right up to the Christmas tree in the middle of the road. It does make you stop and think about not only the light of the tree, but how you are going to get around it safely.

Shrimp and grits Christmas morning breakfast thanks to the wonderful staff at the Hotel Vue.

Christmas morning breakfast view of the Mississippi with Louisiana on the other side of the bridge.

Our Christmas Dinner was a set menu of four courses at Monmouth Historic Inn’s Restaurant 1818.

Christmas Day sunset over the Mississippi.

Bridge to Vidalia, Louisiana.

Possible studio space with a second story apartment near St. Mary’s Basilica and the Turning Pages Bookstore.

On our way to Natchez before Christmas, we stopped in Selma, Alabama. I’ve read that it is one of the poorest towns in the state and it is apparent in the run down buildings. It’s definitely a place that exhibits light and darkness.

Dan stands on the steps of the historic courthouse where people whose skin happened to be black stood in line to register to vote after the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In March 1965, there were three marches over this bridge in an attempt to walk to the state capital in Montgomery. The first was stopped and left many injured. One-third of the marchers were white in the second march and a white clergyman lost his life. With presidential protection provided, the third successfully allowed marchers to complete the walk to Montgomery and achieved its aim with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, enabling protection over the right to vote for black citizens. With courage and perseverance, light overcame the darkness.

It is fitting that the Edmund Pettus Bridge is named for a Civil War General and Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon and is now a Civil Rights Movement landmark.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said in his “Where Do We Go From Here” speech, “Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Do not give up.