Sometimes there’s no way to
understand a passage from the Bible unless you first put yourselves in the
shoes — or the sandals — of the people who wrote down those words. Surely this
is true for today’s reading from Ephesians: “Live as children of light.”
Seems straightforward enough. The
author’s setting up a contrast between light and darkness. Anybody can relate
to that.
Or can we? Are we so sure, in this
highly technological age, that we have a proper appreciation — a lived
understanding — of what darkness is all about?
Apart from the occasional nighttime
power failure, rarely do any of us experience total darkness. Unless we live in
a remote, off-the-grid area, there’s always some ambient light around. Our
cities are such massive engines of electrical generation that you have to
travel hundreds of miles before you stop seeing that distant glow on the
horizon.
Keeping
night’s darkness at bay
That certainly wasn’t true for our colonial
ancestors. Their primary sources of light after the sun went down were candles
or primitive lamps that burned oil or grease.
Most of their candles were made from
tallow — animal fat. The process of rendering fat into candles was dirty,
smelly and time-consuming. Beeswax candles worked better: they burned more cleanly
and reliably, but only the rich could afford them. Whether tallow or beeswax,
candles were among the costliest items in a colonial pantry. Our ancestors used
them sparingly. They never lit up the whole house. They carried a single candle
from room to room.
Colonial lamps were shallow little
dishes, filled with oil or grease in which a rag floated to serve as a wick.
Such a device produced a little light and a lot of carbon.
Those candles and lamps would allow
you to sit up for an hour or two beside the fire to read a book or do some
embroidery. Apart from that, the only other thing to do after sundown was go to
bed.
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