Do you know it is very dark at five o'clock in the morning? You can tell I am not used to getting up that early. But it is deep darkness and cold. Stumbling around trying to shave, dress, pack, and get to Washington to catch a plane; while noticing the nice, inviting, warm bed just beckoning me to crawl back in. And the drive from Gettysburg to Washington is dark and depressing, until the sun begins to rise and light penetrates the darkness, only faintly at first, but then stronger and stronger, until the darkness is displaced by light.

Darkness is frightening, depressing, a specter of Godforsakenness. Our present day and age may be, for a good many of us, something like my having to get up at five o'clock this morning. We fumble and stumble in the present darkness while a nice, warm, inv…