Different Traditions, One Hope

EQUITY COMMITTEE SPOTLIGHT

BY DREW WILLIAMS

As 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 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.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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

Kwanzaa was designed by Dr. Maulana Kerenga in 1966 to bring African Americans together as a community in the wake of the Watts Riots in Los Angeles. The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning “first fruits” in Swahili. Celebrations often include singing and dancing, storytelling, poetry reading, African drumming, and feasting. A major element of the seven-day celebration is the lighting of Mishumaa Saba (The Seven Candles): black for the people, red for the struggle for self-determination and freedom by people of color, and green for the earth that sustains life and provides hope, divination, employment, and the fruits of the harvest. Each candle stands for an African principle, fundamental precepts upon which a creative, productive, and successful community is based: unity, self-determination, collective work, shared economics, life purpose, creativity, and faith. All are welcome to join in this celebration.

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, and light/purity. Light is also symbolic of Jesus as the light of the world and the Star of Bethlehem, which announced Jesus’s birth and guided the Magi to him. Like many religious traditions, this use of fire and light evolved from Pagan winter solstice celebrations using Yule logs, bonfires, and candles to symbolize the rebirth of the sun, turning night into day, and the dawn of the New Year.

Whatever our traditions, as we admire the lights, enjoy the fire, and watch tiny flames flicker, may we share and bear witness to hope. AL

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.