As 2026 approaches, I want to thank all of you who responded to my year-end fund appeal. Your support is gratifying and encouraging for pushing on into the year ahead.

A week ago, I read one of the most disturbing pieces of writing I have ever encountered. It was a long-form essay putting the Epstein affair in a global context of politics, money, sexual abuse, blackmail, and corruption. Of course, I don’t know if everything the author asserts is true, but the story put together too well pieces I’ve found in other places. It describes a world I don’t want to exist. It’s awful, yet it sounds true.

The corrupting influence of money and power is a story as old as human history. In many ways it is the morality tale of civilization and is the central spiritual and ethical warning of the world’s religions. Today there is growing concern that we have entered a new Gilded Age, with all that implies. A popular quote to describe today’s elites, however, comes from the Jazz Age a few decades later. It’s the description of the principal characters of F. Scott Fitgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby.

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.

The prescience of those words was underlined a few years later with the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed. Many would say some kind of “crash” is looming on the horizon now: economic, political, cultural, environmental, or some combination of them.

It can be both infuriating and depressing to learn about the Epstein saga and its countless related stories. They reveal a world we have virtually no experience with or influence upon. As the late comedian, Goerge Carlin, famously said about today’s people of money and power, “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.” Yet we know they have real influence over our lives, and not to our advantage. Shifting the metaphor, Carlin went on to say, “And by the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long.”

As evil and corrupting as we recognize the “big club” to be, we almost all feel some temptation, some desire to be a part of it. Again, literature is filled with stories of people struggling with that temptation and the consequences of giving in to it. It often involves a character convincing themselves that what they know to be evil can somehow be justified. In the 1987 movie, Wall Street, the lead character Gordon Gekko tells shareholders of his morally upside-down philosophy.

“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.” 

 A little over twenty years later, following the 2008 Wall Street implosion that triggered the Great Financial Crisis, Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, declared that investment banks like his were “doing God’s work”. This despite such banks receiving billions in federal bailouts and paying out billions in employee bonuses, while millions of their customers were losing their homes and investments.

During the past few weeks, you may have watched or read the greatest modern story of moral redemption, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge was the Gordon Gekko of the 19^th century, though their stories are very different. The greed and anger that possess Scrooge gradually lose their grip as a series of Christmas Eve ghosts reveal truths about Scrooge’s past, present and future which he hasn’t wanted to face. As Scrooge says at the end, these revelations have given him “new eyes to see and ears to hear” the truth about life’s meaning and value.

It is easy to be frustrated, if not infuriated, by events in our local community, the country, or in the world. Perhaps meaningful change will come sometime soon, even in the next year, but perhaps not. There is much darkness in the world today but as spiritual traditions have taught, it is the darkness that helps us see the light. In the John 1 gospel text for Christmas morning, the incarnate Word is declared to be the light of creation itself.

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

While “Christ the light” is a repeated theme in the New Testament, that message is also stood on its head, as Jesus himself affirms in this famous passage in Matthew 5 from the Sermon on the Mount.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

If one were looking for a simple New Year’s resolution, we could do worse than “I’m going to let my light shine.” Doing so requires two convictions. One, that we have light within us and, second, that letting others experience that light makes a difference, for them and for our world. We can’t underestimate how the simplest acts of caring and compassion will impact people around us. So many people today feel ignored and of no importance, feel abused and oppressed, feel discouraged and hopeless, that our simple yet genuine attention can be encouraging, healing, even transforming.

With so much darkness now, we will be surprised how much effect our light can have. A recent example on the international stage has been the election of Pope Leo XIV last spring. Now, I admit some prejudice as we were near but unknown neighbors, one Chicago suburb away and just a few months apart in age. But seriously, with so many international figures espousing prejudice, hostility, fear, and violence, to hear Pope Leo speak to the world in opposite terms exposes the darkness these voices represent.

The light of Leo’s words connects with the light present within all of us. The same thing happens when we let our light shine, however small we might think it is. Since that light is our true nature, it enables others to recognize their true self and push back against the darkness within themselves and around them. Our light does make a difference and, remarkably, the greater the darkness, the brighter our light shines.

Best wishes to all of you in 2026!

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