"You stupid darkness!"

and you beautiful little candles

“It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness,” is a quote attributed to the Bible, Confucius, John F. Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Oliver Wendell Holmes (Jr. and Sr.) and others.

It seems to have first appeared in print when English Wesleyan minister William Lonsdale Watkinson used the expression in his collection The Supreme Conquest, and other sermons preached in America, 1907:

But denunciatory rhetoric is so much easier and cheaper than good works, and proves a popular temptation. Yet is it far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness.

I remember it from a 1965 Charles M. Schulz Peanuts comic:

In this setting, Lucy represents the “popular temptation” to hurl epithets at — you name it — ignorance, objectionable behavior, monolithic meanness. Linus on the other hand holds that a good deed, however small, is better than complaining about something you have limited control over. At least that’s how I read it.

Speaking of pushing back against the dark, in the past 87 days there have been numerous protest rallies in and around Washington DC. My wife and I attended the February 17 “No Kings on Presidents Day” rally, and she attended the April 5 “Hands Off!” rally and the April 16 protest at Veteran's Plaza in Silver Spring demanding the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. I’m thinking these events and others represent a hybrid of positive action (“lighting a candle”) and a collective shout — with some cursing, it can be noted — in protest against a rising tide of demagoguery.

In these times it seems best and necessary to combine good acts with righteous protest: lighting a lot of candles and lifting a lot of voices.

But going back a moment to the single candle idea. Tuesday morning brought my wife and I to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to see perform a youth string ensemble from the Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. These young folk playing a spirited and diverse selection out in the grey windiness of our nation’s capital delighted the eyes and ears of the audience that stood in a semi-circle around them. Sheet music was clipped to the stands with clothes pegs, some held their stands in place with one foot, and the music rising forth in their short concert was sublime. Part of the program also included members of our own DC Youth Orchestra.

One particularly moving piece was “Adoration,” written by Florence Price (1887-1953), a gifted and prolific composer, notable for being the first African-American woman to have her music performed by a major orchestra. Researching her biography, we discovered that one of her songs, My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord, was part of the program sung by Marian Anderson on April 9, 1939 — on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

History lesson. Joy. Connection. The talented youth of America. All on display at the foot of a revered monument. The spokesperson for the event even used the word “diversity” (on federal property!) which struck me as a small subversive act in a time when libraries are culling books, and websites are scrubbed of certain words.

I might allow myself be ruled by anger and helplessness were it not for this thought: there must always be many candles in many places and times, enough to hold at bay even the most appalling darkness.

And each of us can be one of those candles.