THE
POLAR NIGHT
Winter. The days grow shorter and the darkness creeps in under the skin. I
don't know what it is like where you, the reader, are, but up here in the far
north there is no need for a calendar to see that the year is drawing to a
close. The days of midwinter are so short that there is scarcely time to look
round while it is light. It is easy to forget that summer is correspondingly
light and summer nights just as short as winter days as we approach the
shortest day of the year. The yearning for light gradually increases as the
darkness gains ground, but now Christmas is at hand and brighter days are
waiting beyond New Year.
Because the darkness has its nadir too. It simply cannot get any darker, before
or after. If you are in absolute darkness, the light is ahead of you, whichever
way you look; be it night, sorrow, oppression or terror, everything has an end.
The difficulty is perhaps to remember the dawn when everything is so black.
DELIVERANCE
Future deliverance is prophesised all through the Old Testament. First through
the generation of Abraham and Isaac, but later on in the shape of an individual
deliverer, king or prince. His shape and disposition vary slightly according to
the times - remember that the old writings cover a considerable time span in which
nomads become farmers and town dwellers, with all the changes in their
conditions of life and culture which that entails. To this can then be added
the unstable situation in the Middle East, where successive despots and
warlords rose and fell, and where war between nations and the oppression of
entire peoples were frequent phenomena.
THE PROPHETS
In the dark times that were the latter half of the eight century before Christ,
when the Assyrians were threatening and oppressing Palestine, the prophet Isaiah
spoke of the son of a young woman who would deliver the downtrodden nation.
Micah of Moresheth-gath was active as a prophet at around the same time and
spoke out against chaos, corrupt priests and officials and the oppression of
the poor. Micah also speaks of the young woman who will give birth in humble
circumstances to the new prince of peace, whose power shall extend to the end
of the world: But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be
ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath
brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children
of Israel...
A
century later, when Jerusalem has been sacked, the exile in Babylon is at an
end and the smashed temple is being rebuilt, the prophet Zechariah also
describes the chief who will ride humbly into Jerusalem on the back of an ass's
foal: ...Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem:
behold, thy King cometh unto thee: his is just, and having salvation; lowly,
and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass...
And this is how it should always be. Deliverance from the grip of darkness does
not lie in the tramp of boots, enormous, staged events or tyranny, but in
humility, common sense and the ability to remember and to want to remember.
Warring forces rise and fall, and even if we remember the warlords and their
deeds, not one of them still has the influence of the small child whose birth
was foretold by the prophets.
HOPE
Hope lies in the mother's womb and the young woman, who looks back over
countless generations, carries the unknown future under her heart. And hope
lies in time itself, from time immemorial, symbolised by the new moon, emblem
of the universal womb. But hope also rests in itself. The young bride of today,
standing with a bouquet of myrtle in her hands, is carrying, usually without knowing
it, an ancient symbol of the mother, in our culture the Virgin Mary, who
represents both chastity and fertility.
The ass symbolises humility and perseverance. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on
the back of an ass's foal, Zechariah's prophecy was fulfilled, because power
does not lie in the muzzle of a rifle or the blade of a sword, but in common
sense and compassion, and the ability to see the light at the end of the
tunnel.
THE WORD AND THE LIGHT
...And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth...
So writes St John the evangelist in his description of Christ's birth. I am
aware that different people ascribe different meanings to this very verse, so everyone
is welcome to place their own interpretation on the actual image. For me this
beautiful verse means that the laws and immensity of God and the universe are
concentrated in the newborn child. The light, which returns and lives in the
word and common sense, and bears humility and tolerance in its womb.
WINTER SUN
Just now a strip of light is falling across the table where I am sitting to
write this. The pale winter sun is in the south, but will soon start to battle
its way ever higher in the northern sky, and at the moment I can feel its faint
warmth on my left hand.
THE
CONNECTION
Well, enough of that. The sun symbolises God, the omnipotent power of the
universe, but it is also an emblem of God's word, which took on human form in
Christ, the divine core of man. The connection between word and body,
symbolised by Mary, a human woman, who bore the divine Christ. This very
connection is sometimes symbolised by Mary together with a ladder. When I read
recently in an book of English nursery rhymes from early this century that
lily-of-the-valley is also called ladders to heaven, it struck me as a good
symbol of the connection between heaven and earth, body and substance,
religious philosophy and the faith of one's childhood.
I know from experience that religious subjects are perceived very differently
from person to person, and what is quite natural for one may seem offensive to
others. I therefore wish to state that nothing of the sort is intended, and
that the attitudes and points of view set out here are those of the artist and
in no way express any religious stance on the part of Postverk Føroya.
Anker Eli Petersen
