The days are growing longer again. So far, no one but a meteorologist with a stopwatch could recognize the extra few seconds of sunlight per day. But the noonday sun is rising measurably higher in the sky. The intensity of light is increasing. Warmth is returning to the earth.
        And we rejoice.
        There's a tendency for us to imagine dark and cold as an active agent, pressing in on us. But science tells us that cold is merely the absence of warmth. And darkness doesn't really exist. It's simply the absence of light.
        Dark is passive; light is active. You cannot turn on a dark that will drive away the light. You can only turn off a light, and leave darkness in its absence.
        In our culture, we tend to use light to symbolize good; we equate darkness with evil. That's only natural. We owe our survival to the light and energy that reaches us from the sun.
        But it's probably not fair to darkness. It's in darkness that our bodies rebuild themselves while we sleep. In darkness, our dreams make order of the chaotic impressions we have absorbed during the waking hours. In the darkness of the earth, seeds germinate. In the darkness of the womb, new life bursts into being.

Illuminating parallels
        Still, as a metaphor for understanding our world, the image of light and dark works reasonably well.
        I find myself constantly frustrated that evil seems so omnipresent. Developers bulldoze a forest bare and replace it with little boxes made of ticky-tacky. Corporations cook up fiscal flimflam that rewards the top executives and defrauds employees and customers. Drug companies try to restrict the manufacture of generic drugs that could save millions of Africans from dying of AIDS.
        It sounds like an active force. And there are times when I'm strongly tempted to believe that there is a very real power of evil loose in the world – what the apostle Paul called “principalities and powers” and Jesus called “the prince of this world.”
        But if the analogy with light and dark is valid, this is not evil as much as the absence of good. People who believe in a fundamental goodness built into the human being, who understand the difference between right and wrong, relax. They back off. They choose not to speak up, not to assert themselves, not to get involved.
        And the darkness rushes in to fill the void.

Uncomfortable implications
        The trouble with this analogy is that, scientifically, darkness is the natural state of the universe. Bright lights like the stars, like our sun, are the exception.
        Which, if you extend the analogy, implies that evil would be the natural human state. The snake oil salesman, the home invader, the pimp – these become the norm for human interaction. Which makes occasional shining stars like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Jean Vanier, and Jesus, the exceptions.
        If they're exceptions to the norm, why bother trying to emulate them?
        I don't like that picture. I want to believe that God is good. And if humans are created in God's image, they must be too.
        I don't know whether it's the analogy or the reality that's flawed.