I saw a poignant saying recently on social media, which sparked a memory. It was, “You’re going to need oil in your lamp. It’s getting dark out there.”
Instantly I remembered a really singable song from my youth church days. Either it was from church camp or it was from one of those spiritually invigorating evening services intended to awaken a sleepy church.
The chorus I recall went like this, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning; give me oil in my lamp, I pray. Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning, keep me burning ‘til the break of day.” The song was really catchy, as I guess it was supposed to be (E. Sevison, Lyricist).
About oil, there are all kinds of it. Oil can be used to grease up a gear or other mechanism that has become stuck in its working. Oil rejuvenates our joints or anything else in or on our bodies that has lost or worn out its flexibility or natural pliability.
Oil is a vital source of fuel, which powers our bodies and our human-made society. Fossil fuel, can you say dinosaurs, plant fuel, from corn, other grains, vegetables, flowers and what have you, come from the earth around us. We need to just tend it, and harvest it.
It’s harvest time, people. I know in rural America; we celebrate the seasons. Often those celebrations highlight plants or fruits as symbols of the season. In the autumn we see a proliferation around the countryside of rich and earthy-colored pumpkins and other gourds, corn stalks, bales of hay, apples, and deep and darkly saturated colors in chrysanthemums.
It’s getting darker by the minute, it seems, as the days of autumn progress. Daylight is dwindling and our moods grow slightly more somber to match the darker days.
We wear more black, brown, and earth colors, in the fall. Gone, is the rule to stop wearing white after Labor Day, but aside from a bit of “winter white,” white or other light and pastel colors just don’t speak for our frame of mind this time of year.
We definitely need oil in our lamps to keep us going until the break of day, or spring daybreak as it seems. So not only literal darkness is coming in increments of a minute or more a day, so is cultural darkness.
Speaking of cultural darkness, I don’t understand quite why we must maintain the cultural construct of Daylight Savings Time. You know, the “fall-back, spring-forward” clock changing ritual that we follow in most of the United States.
I honestly don’t get it, as an east coast person, why when it gets dark at six o’clock in the evening the way our clocks are set now, we have to set them artificially back an hour making it dark at five o’clock! Do you know what that means to older people?
We have to fight to stay awake until eight o’clock in the evening, eight o’clock! I was used to setting out for a walk at seven in the evening, but very soon, my slippers and robe will be beckoning me at seven-thirty.
Humans created Daylight Savings Time. Why do we have such a hard time changing it back? It’s just too sensible, I guess. A few years ago, someone in Congress offered a bill to do just that. It was tabled by someone out west, I think. Oh, my heavens, we can’t even agree on what time it is.
Why such darkening? Some say it’s a spiritual thing. Others claim it’s totally a human construct, quite by accident or inattention. Yet others believe it’s a conscious effect of intention, for whatever reason.
At any rate, we need oil in our lamps folks. We need light for the path ahead. We need fuel to power the way forward. How we obtain this oil is a matter of contention, and by nature, refining it is not a pretty process.
We don’t all agree about how to proceed in the darkness. We agree that it’s getting darker and we need light, but now what?
It’s of little point to fuss over how we got here or why it’s dark. The fuss begins, however, with specifically what to do now.
We’ve used up our oil. Forgive us for spilling the oil given to us. Show us how to refuel without retribution, remorse or regret.
None of us is wise enough to know how to refuel a nation stuck in division. But I am wise enough to know the only way to unstick the mechanism that is America, is some pretty fragrant and potent oil.
All I can plead is, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning…. keep me burning ’til the break of day.” Sooner, rather than later, please.