EQUITY COMMITTEE SPOTLIGHT
Different Traditions, One Hope BY DREW WILLIAMS their Clark Griswold glory, we can reflect on what that flicker might mean to someone else down the street, across the country, or on the other side of the world. Across time, religions, cultures, and the world, a common theme of winter solstice ceremonies is fire and light as symbols of hope.
Assistant Travis County Attorney Drew Williams specializes in civil litigation and teaches Trial Advocacy at the University of Texas School of Law. He also serves on the leadership team for the Austin Bar Association’s Equity Committee.
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s the dark of night inhales the sun, green gives way to brown, blue to gray, and a stillness falls. We settle in for what may prove to be a cold, dark winter. Most years, we gather with family and friends to celebrate traditions and long-held beliefs. But this year, the air is thick with grief and anxiety disrupting pilgrimages home, hugs from distant relatives, and familiar foods. We find ourselves with fewer comforts, more distance, more silence in the night. COVID-19 threatens our lives and livelihoods while civil unrest, racism, and political division threaten our world views, relationships, and delusions of equity and justice. The country is divided by race, ideology, gender, class, physical ability, age, religion, wealth, and other aspects of our identities. But this winter, let us commit to finding a common thread that ties our own beloved traditions to those of another. Perhaps this year, as we strike a match and sulphur wafts through the air, or we light up our homes in all of 14
DIWALI The Hindu Festival of Lights is a five-day celebration of light over darkness and marks a time for making wishes for the coming year. The night before Diwali, the home is cleaned and decorated.1 On Diwali night, people dress up and light diyas, lamps, and candles inside and outside the home and send floating lanterns out on waterways. The lights guide exiled Lord Rama’s triumphant return home as told in the Hindu epic, Ramayana. The lights also serve to invite the gifts of the Goddess of Prosperity and Plenty, Lakshmi. Families feast and often exchange gifts. Diwali is not only important to Hindus, but is also celebrated among Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs, and has several alternative legends explaining its origins.2 HANUKKAH The Jewish Festival of Lights is an eight-night celebration. According to the Talmud, there was only enough oil to keep the Temple’s menorah, one of its most important ritual objects, burning for one day. But the flame stayed alight for eight days, until a new supply of oil could be found—the basis for the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah.3 This is the miracle of light, the ability to triumph in the face of adversity, and shine against darkness and evil. Each night, one candle in the menorah is lit, games are played, and festive fried food is served.4
AUSTINLAWYER | DECEMBER 2020/JANUARY 2021
One by one, in tiny increments, candle by candle, gesture by effort, wish by prayer, concern by care, we feed the life-fires of the soul and light the infinite universe, little by little from within.8 – Mama Donna Henes KWANZAA and light/purity. Light is also Kwanzaa was designed by Dr. symbolic of Jesus as the light Maulana Kerenga in 1966 to of the world and the Star of bring African Americans together Bethlehem, which announced as a community in the wake of Jesus’s birth and guided the Magi the Watts Riots in Los Angeles.5 to him.7 Like many religious The name Kwanzaa is derived traditions, this use of fire and from the phrase matunda ya light evolved from Pagan winter kwanza, meaning “first fruits” solstice celebrations using Yule in Swahili. Celebrations often logs, bonfires, and candles to include singing and dancing, symbolize the rebirth of the sun, storytelling, poetry reading, turning night into day, and the African drumming, and feasting. dawn of the New Year. A major element of the seven-day Whatever our traditions, as we celebration is the lighting of admire the lights, enjoy the fire, Mishumaa Saba (The Seven and watch tiny flames flicker, Candles): black for the people, may LAWYER we share and bear witness AUSTIN red for the struggle for self-deterAL AL to hope. mination and freedom by people Footnotes of color, and green for the earth 1. TNN. “What is Diwali and how to that sustains life and provides celebrate the festival of lights?” Times hope, divination, employment, of India. and the fruits of the harvest. 2. Little, Becky. “The Ancient Origins of Diwali, India’s Biggest Holiday” Each candle stands for an African 3. Forgasz, Rebecca. “The Story of principle, fundamental precepts Hanukkah” The Conversation. upon which a creative, produc4. My Jewish Learning.” The Hanukkiah (Hanukkah Menorah)” tive, and successful community is 5. “The History, Principles, and Symbols based: unity, self-determination, of Kwanzaa.” Interexchange.org. collective work, shared econom6. Henes, Mama Donna. “Festivals of ics, life purpose, creativity, and Light in the Dark.” Huffpost. 7. Chan, Melissa. “Here’s How faith.6 All are welcome to join in Christmas Lights Came to Be.” Time. this celebration. 8. Henes, “Festivals.”
ADVENT Many Christians celebrate Advent (meaning “arrival”), a time of expectation and hope. The most common Advent tradition involves four candles around the Advent wreath and sometimes a fifth in the middle, lit each Sunday in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The candles symbolize hope, faith, joy, peace,
