In the Light We Fly Free

(Black Skimmers)

For me, 2024 was a dark year. It was the year the stain on our souls seeped out to run amuck yet again. I’m fighting a deep sadness at this blatant reminder that we still carry this sickness within. I thought we had it on the run back in the sixties.

Masses cheered. Our conjured monsters wore holy cloth and black robes and ties, oh the ties. My mom always said a nice tie showed a respectable man. There were women beasts too, of course, all wearing their robes and gowns and finery. All of them claimed mandates and powers that should have remained beyond their grasps. Sheep’s clothing became the fashion strutted out by the poor and the wealthy, the common and the celebrated, the profane and the anointed.

I think our darkness emanates from some perennial need for power over others and from a ravenous greed for more. It mixes with fear that others may take our power from us. Strangers do that, you know. Steal our power. So the story goes. Our response seems always to be curses and walls, fists and bats, bombs and bullets. Curiosity is the first casualty. We miss the opportunities to learn, to share, to open our arms—even to just live and let live.

I apologize for this foreboding, but it may explain that this last work of the year was more about the light than the birds. I know I’m searching for an antidote to the dread I feel.

On my better days, I can find light all around me: in nature, in music, in all the arts, in discovery and invention, in love for one another, in every act of kindness, in a simple wag of my dog’s tail. If I can just hold onto this and remind my children, friends, and neighbors too, we may yet defeat the night.

A Last Note

James Earl Carter, Jr. passed away on December 29, 2024, among family in Plains, Georgia, his home of one hundred years. Whether as President of the United States or Sunday school teacher, we all knew him as Jimmy, an acknowledgment of the man’s lifelong and inspiring humility.

As words and strains of Amazing Grace filled the National Cathedral at his funeral service and the familiar words of prayer and the Beatitudes were joined by those in D.C. and by listeners all around the world, in silent tears I recognized his last great gift to us all.

Hope.