Becoming Earnest

Many decades ago I spent a weekend with a couple of high school classmates at Andrew Lytle’s log cabin home in Monteagle, Tennessee. It was warm out. Screen doors allowed the breeze to flow through the simple square cabin. Mr Lytle and the professor that took us on this field trip mostly just sat and sipped bourbon. The drinking didn’t start until well into the afternoon but I remember that the appointed time was eagerly watched after. Us young men were allowed to imbibe as well. 

Mr. Lytle served hog jowls, eggs, and biscuits for breakfast. Lunch was a simple affair as well. Dinner was special. We dressed for dinner. After our Saturday night meal, still enjoying the red wine served with it, Mr. Lytle posed a question to us students, not one to answer, but a question to contemplate. It’s been over 40 years since that night and I still pondered the question, “What is the night”.

I’ve thought about it for years and kept coming up with different answers, but I’ll give it my best shot today. What is the night? Well, it’s whatever you need it to be. The night can be cover and concealment; it can give a soldier a tactical advantage. The night can be fear; it begs the question “what’s out there”. But, as to my original premise, the night , like all of life, is yours to make into whatever you need. The night can be freedom or it can capture you, envelope or  swallow you whole.

Life is full of fears, terrors. We can worry and allow them to grab hold. It’s often the unknown that concerns us the most. That’d be the future. The night is like that, it COULD be filled with darkness. However, the optimist knows it’s rare to find absolute darkness. Emerson said, “Go out of the house to see the moon, and ‘t is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey” and I love that. I look for beauty. I can appreciate the dimmest moon ray to light my path. The darker it feels the brighter those dim rays.