The Light of the World

We understand light, and we bask in it.  I am old enough to remember a time when the only light to be found in our house after bedtime was the pilot light on a gas stove.  Now, flame igniters and electric stoves have rendered the pilot light obsolete, but of host of other inventions have taken its place.

Not long ago I wandered into our kitchen in the middle of the night to take some cold medicine.  As I chased a pill down with a glass of water, my way was lit with the ambient light of no less than nineteen electronic devices.  Like waterway channel markers, small green and red luminaries guided my journey.  The list of beacons included appliance clocks, on-off indicators, lights to tell us our portable devices were fully charged, and others to assure us our smoke alarms were functioning.  I couldn’t help but think of how much electricity those small lights use when multiplied by millions of households around the world.  And they only represented what goes on when our house is in sleep mode.  I could also have flipped a switch and fully illuminated the kitchen, or grabbed a high density LED flashlight out of the junk drawer.

At the very moment I was searching for some cold medicine, dozens of security sensor lights in our neighborhood stood sentry over porches and side entrances.  Street lights made the night navigable, and throughout our city, high density beams waged war against crime pockets.

Light!  It is our modern-day security blanket.  Yet, the physical world in which we live only constitutes one dimension of the darkness we seek to overcome.