Happiness, Hanukkah, and Heaven

OFTEN I have disregarded subjects of mirth in my writing, perhaps because there has been a dark season over the last year. Optimistic as I am and hope to remain, I did not trust the good things as much as the inevitable bad ones.

Certainly, in small matters of insignificant value, there might be a lovely purpose, but when it comes to the large matters my hopes falter.

What could these things be?

Well marriage for one, publication for another, but healthy purpose, a place to exist, that is most important. I write because I want to love people and express what I have seen life to be and because I want to share what stories I have imagined with them as well. I want to be married because I want to love someone in particular that can stay longer than anyone else ever could.

But then enters the scary part, "What if?"

What if I never get married? What if I continue to love but am not found to be lovable? What if I am published and never read? What if I am read and incite something crazy? What if I change nothing at all?

Tonight is the sixth night of Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication. As a child this meant the story of the lights. Later I found that there were skeptics on this being the miracle of Hanukkah, I am convinced there are skeptics for everything, and skeptic inconsistently. For example some find it easy to believe that G-d formed Adam out of the dust and breathed life into him, but impossible for a virgin birth. There is always something we find either hard to believe or too good to believe.

The story of the Lights is this, after the Maccabees reclaimed the Temple that had been desecrated by the Seleucid King in a forced Hellenism, teaching the world that the Jewish spirit is laced with resistance. Greek culture would continue to have an impact on the Jewish people, the New Testament is written in Greek by Jewish men not only because they wished to write to Gentiles, but because it had become the normative language of communication among Jews as well.

When the Temple was restored the eternal light must be lit, this was the Menorah, a candelabra commanded by the L-rd to be always lit. There is a servant candle in the center and six branches symbolizing a tree. This light was so bright it shone out of the Temple on those golden Jerusalem stones. As the story goes there was only one jar of undefiled oil, and only enough for one night. The process to refine more oil is a seven day procedure, knowing this and the charge that the light must be guarded and never put out they lit the Menorah, resigned to watch the glory fade as new oil was being prepared.

You might be one of very few who question "didn't they have household  oil for their lamps? why not use that to keep the light burning?" Remember Aaron's sons? They brought wild fire into the Temple and G-d consumed them. Even with 400 years of silence and the horror of the abominations done in the Temple, the Jewish leaders had a reverence on them preventing that kind of liberty. If it was to be lit it was going to be lit according to the commandment, with oil meeting the standard of the Law. And here was a jug of it to last one night. The dilemma arises, do you wait to light the Menorah until more oil is made, or do you use the oil that has been found acceptable? They chose to light it.

Here is where the unexpected good drops in and warms the soul, in the winter as the Jewish rebels are awaiting the fading light of the Temple's glory, in those months where it seems most likely that G-d who warms the summer abandons us to the winter chill and darkness, the light does not fade.

     In the end, I have no right to be afraid of good things; worse case scenario the oil burns out.

But with the Holy Spirit living within me, that presence is inextinguishable. He makes optimists of us all, "like honey on my lips and water to my soul..."