Roads to Joy

I was going to sit here, after our festive lights have come on in the dark late afternoon, and write about the joy of singing. Or the joy of participation — we’ve got tickets for the annual pantomime put on by the Youth Players at the CatStrand Arts Centre, just down the High Street from us. This afternoon we share with the GlenKens Singers in a Carols by Candlelight service at the delightful Carsphairn kirk.

But how to write about these joys, how even to think about indulging in such joyful experiences, when the shadow of death is so near? Our neighbour passed away, suddenly yesterday. It seems impossible, incorrigible perhaps, to try to carry on with the joys of the season when grief is so very raw and immediate.

I suppose that the older one gets, the closer one feels to the end times, and yet it’s also a very human characteristic to carry on. We take a moment, to pause and consider our own mortality and to try to empathise with those for whom the loss is unbearable, and having done so, we pick ourselves up somehow and get on with the lives we’re so fortunate, still, to be experiencing. While we cannot wrest any joy from the indirect fallout of the loss of a neighbour, it seems that we bystanders can find joy in the face of death, somehow.

And how might that be, that somehow? I think it must be by the simple act of carrying on, persevering, fulfilling our duties and obligations while at the same time recognising the suffering of those directly affected.

This blog entry, then, is like a solitary candle, lit to illumine the darkness after respectfully blacking out the festive lights, lit to remember the life that has passed from our midst, and to reflect on the light we ourselves must continue to shine, for as long as we are able, in the life we have.