Dash of Thought - December 2022

Lights out

Our son and his two-year-old Aaron recently visited Papillorama (a zoo that focuses especially on keeping butterflies and moths). One of the halls is the Nocturama with nocturnal animals. As a daytime review, we received a short video in which Aaron squeezes his eyes shut, clenches his hands and says over and over again: "all night; all night." This darkness must have made a big impression on him - even more than the colorful butterflies in Papillorama.

I am curious to see whether and how much lights will really go out in our cities and shopping streets during Advent. Or will - despite electricity-saving measures - the Advent and Christmas lights remain the same bright, sometimes even flashy, so as not to jeopardize the important sales before the festive season?

At the moment, however, the people in many areas of Ukraine are experiencing involuntary extinguishing of lights, because important parts of the infrastructure in the country are being deliberately destroyed by the Russian army. And in addition to the lights going out, it triggers a general power cut and thus often an avalanche of other failures in heating, communication, etc.

Even though energy has become more expensive in our Western Europe - and hopefully we have become a little more economical in our use of it - we are still doing very well. I wonder whether it also makes us more willing to take the need of others to heart and share a little more of our wealth.

From the bottom of my heart, I would therefore like to thank all those who, in various ways, not only give presents to relatives and friends at Christmas, but also share with people in need, whether with those in their immediate neighborhood or through networks such as Connexio hope and Connexio develop in other countries. Thank you very much!

Bishop Patrick Streiff