2026: Let the Light In

2026.  The words of Leonard Cohen in “Anthem” seem especially poignant as this new year dawns.  For too many, the darkness has come closer, the bells seeming more silent, the light fading, the fix out of reach.  Cohen’s words confront the silence — “Ring the bells that still can ring!”  His prophetic voice chides us not to want to fix it all, at least not all at once — “Forget your perfect offering!”  Instead, let’s look for light where it comes through and realize that nothing is perfect or forever — even what seems like impenetrable darkness:  “There’s a crack in everything — that’s how the light gets in.”

For too many people, 2025 was a year of darkness shrouding our national civic life.  Yes, there were many who greeted the political change with cheers, but as the year went on many more found that change to herald fear, danger, brutality, increasing threats to personal freedom and the likelihood of growing poverty for many while a few grew richer.  Immigrants suffered particularly intense and unjust targeting, with ICE agents clad in outfits resembling something out of a dystopian movie dragging mothers from their cars in front of children, arresting day laborers on job sites and terrorizing entire cities.  National guard troops gathered on street corners as symbols of a government suddenly using its military power on its own citizens.  Disgraceful rhetoric that would merit clear punishment for a school child spewed from the lips of certain leaders.  Congress cowered, tech titans bowed, universities caved.

“There’s a crack in everything — that’s how the light gets in.”  Anyone who has studied history for more than a nanosecond must know that the cycles do not last.  Even as the current rise of authoritarianism might be seen as an inevitable correction for too much liberalism (can there really be too much freedom? or was the “correction” more in reaction to inevitable changes in demographics and culture that cannot be stopped?), so, too, the signs of resistance are emerging and the cracks are beginning to show.  A leader who goes too far in his hateful rhetoric begins to lose support.  Policies that begin to hurt those who once supported the leader begin to erode “the base.” Perhaps bulldozing part of the White House or installing Dear Leader’s name over the name of a beloved icon are small things compared to bombing private boats on international waters or conducting military actions in another country, but all have the effect of cracking the facade of public support.  It’s only a matter of time before the facade crumbles, even as the East Wing is in ruins.

In the last few months, some politicians in the current administration have taken to asserting that the United States is a “Christian nation.” It is not. It is specifically, by constitutional design, a secular nation. Christian nationalism, which is what these politicians are preaching, is a wholesale mis-appropriation of religion to assert power. What these politicians should really be doing is listening to Pope Leo XIV — who, sadly, they already mock — and then they should heed his words and mend their power-mad approach to governing.

Listen to what Pope Leo said on Christmas Day in his “Urbi et Orbi” blessing:

“Sisters and brothers, responsibility is the sure way to peace. If all of us, at every level, would stop accusing others and instead acknowledge our own faults, asking God for forgiveness, and if we would truly enter into the suffering of others and stand in solidarity with the weak and the oppressed, then the world would change.

“Jesus Christ is our peace first of all because he frees us from sin, and also because he shows us the way to overcome conflicts — all conflicts, whether interpersonal or international. Without a heart freed from sin, a heart that has been forgiven, we cannot be men and women of peace or builders of peace. This is why Jesus was born in Bethlehem and died on the cross: to free us from sin. He is the Savior. With his grace, we can and must each do our part to reject hatred, violence and opposition, and to practice dialogue, peace and reconciliation.”

Ring the bells that still can ring!  Practice dialogue, peace and reconciliation!  The cracks will keep widening, the light will get in.

Happy new year!