Be The Candle

I cannot rave enough about the writings of Matthew Woodring Stover.  He's a contemporary sci-fi/fantasy writer, best known for his Blade of Tyshalle series and his most recent work penning a few Star Wars novels that threw fans for a loop.  In the novelization for Revenge of the Sith (arguably, in my opinion, one of the greatest film novelizations of all time...infinitely better than the movie itself), Stover wrote this beautiful piece on the nature of darkness and light, which appears in portions during the book as the story plunges into darkness:

(Warning: long post, but worth it!)

The dark is generous.

Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still.  But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from the truths of others.

The dark protects us from what we dare not know.

Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night's embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in the day's harsh light.  But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day.  Because it's the day that's temporary.  

Day is the illusion.

Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self.

With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins.

***

The dark is generous, and it is patient.

It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt.

The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout.

The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light.

The dark's patience is infinite.

Eventually, even stars burn out.

***

The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.

It always wins because it is everywhere.

It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed.  Walk in the midday sun, and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

***

The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins - but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.

Love is more than a candle.

Love can ignite the stars.


Today, I watched a young woman feel the weight of the world on her shoulders, having witnessed firsthand how much darkness many people carry within them.  Those who dwell in that much darkness would sooner extinguish a flame because the sight of a light burns their eyes.  For them, it is more comfortable to remain in the dark than to walk in the light.

It is easier to embrace the darkness.  Sooner or later, you will always be right.

It takes courage to walk in the light: the courage to be wrong, to misstep, to risk and lose.

It is never the easier path, but no matter how temporary the successes may be, no matter how much the odds are against you, and no matter how many stand with you, it is worth the effort to hold up a candle to the night.

Even in the darkest of nights, find the courage and the strength to be the candle that lights the world.