A friend who is a priest, as well as a skilled teacher of theology, was talking to me about his mood… he said that he is bringing a message of joy to people, but lockdown is difficult, he finds his mood is... inconsistent.
I said: face it – this is the dark of the year.
There was a reason they put Christmas here: this is when you need it.
There is often a burst of weird pop-psychology screeds around this time for and about people who are “strangely” depressed and anxious…
Oh, come on: the shortest days, the darkest nights? Where I live, when the solstice arrives, the day is seven hours and eleven minutes long.
And, this evening, sunset is just about twelve minutes before that solstice.
All piled on top of COVID, Omicron, governments, confusion, anxiety – although all of that is quite familiar by now: I hope no one is feeling shocked by it all, it should be something for which everyone can prepare…
So. It is dark. This is darkness, this is the thing that is hardest to face: as the world moves through its nadir, can we really expect ourselves to be innately cheerful?
So, for me at least: everyone can relax. The darkness is real, the sadness is real; the dangers in the world are real. You don’t need to act as though they are not; and you also don’t need to dramatize the darkness, or dramatize your positive or negative relation to it.
You can just hunker down, protect all that there is to protect, and wait in anticipation of… something else: whatever it is. Whatever will be brought to us…