When I was a kid, I loved The Dark Crystal, a movie made by Jim Henson and filled with some
pretty fabulous puppets. It’s a story about two elf-like creatures (called
gelflings, if you must know) who must evade creepy buzzard-like creatures and
battle gigantic beetles and, eventually, save their entire land. These gentle
creatures turn out to be big players, cosmically speaking, and it’s no
coincidence that they’ve made their presence known during something called the
Great Conjunction.
“The Great Conjunction is the end of the world!” proclaims a
weird womanish creature named Aughra. “Or the beginning.”
There are those who think we’re on the brink of the end of
the world around here, and we we’re without a single gelfling. The long-count
Mayan calendar is set to end Dec. 21, which has sent loads of New Age-y true
believers running for the hills—in some cases literally. Some wanted to head to
the French village of Bugarach, believing that the tiny town might be spared
because of the cool mountain nearby. (The town said thanks, but commemorate the end of the world elsewhere.) Another
mountain, Mt. Rtanj in Serbia, is also rumored to be a safe apocalyptic harbor.
Living in Colorado Springs, I’m surprised we haven’t seen a surge of folks
setting up shop on the slopes of Pikes Peak.
Experts say the only real “end” the Mayans were fortelling
is the end of the calendar: Time to go to Hallmark and pick up another one.
But let me admit something to you. While I don’t believe the
world will stop turning Dec. 21, there have been times when it’s felt like the
end of the world.
The Newtown massacre hit lots of us pretty hard, and I think
we might be excused for feeling, in the wake of the tragedy, that our culture was
going a little wrong. There have been seven mass killings in 2012: Seven too
many. It can feel as though we’re unsafe no matter where we go or what we do. A
sick, unstable person has the power to take what’s most precious to us and tear
our worlds apart.
We’re struggling with other issues, too. The Fiscal Cliff.
Climate change. Uprisings in the Middle East. Economic strife in Europe. It’s
hard to be a glass-half-full sort of person when the glass seems full of holes.
There’s a reason why the Mayans pegged Dec. 21 as the day
their calendar ended. It’s the winter solstice—a natural completion of a year
and the shortest, darkest day of the year. It was a time when the land was at
its bleakest and gloomiest. Perhaps those not familiar with the cyclical nature
of the seasons might wonder whether things would ever get better. The solstice
was, in many cultures, a time of celebration—a seasonal understanding that,
yeah, things may look pretty black now, but they’re bound to get brighter;
bound to get better.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why the Christian Church
chose to celebrate Christ’s birth on Dec 25, so very close to the solstice
(most scholars seem to think Jesus was probably born in the spring or fall),
and why lights—from advent candles to LED displays—are such integral parts of
celebrating Christmas.
Really, what better time is there to celebrate the arrival
of the world’s only true light, only true hope, but in the darkest part of the
year?
Things may look pretty bleak right now. The world feels dark
and cold. I feel the chill everywhere. But as Christmas itself tells us,
sometimes the darkest of times can bring life to the brightest of hopes. And
though it may feel like the end of the world, it might be just a new
beginning.
