WORDS SHINING IN THE NIGHT

I wrote this column for my Language Matters series during the winter of 2006. it seems as resonant now as it did then. I wish all my blog visitors a warm, safe, and restorative holiday.

Words Shining in the Night


By Kathryn Stripling Byer

Nothing brings our language into brighter focus than religious holidays. As we gather to

hear the words of this holiday season, we have lately become more aware of how those

words can both bind us together and push us apart. Just last Christmas, there was an

uproar over greeters at various stores using Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas,

as if the former somehow diminished the latter. Yet, many Americans do not celebrate a

traditional Christmas and many others do not celebrate it at all. Some, like certain Native

American tribes, never have, welcoming the solstice instead with their age-old earth-

based rituals.

So, what to do in our increasingly pluralistic society, where Latino, Arabic, Jewish, African, and

Asian voices are joining the chorus of celebrations? Can we agree at least on the meaning of this yearly

turning, that it pulls us back into the light, if we let it? And that the light can bring us

together, if we let it?

Perhaps learning some new words for light would be a good place to start. Tara, for

example. We English speakers think of Ireland and Scarlett O’Hara’s plantation. But the

word is also Urdu/Hindi for star, descended from the Sanskrit for “shining.” And this

time of year the star shining in the night carries special significance. In Spanish it is the

beautiful word estrella, and in French, etoile. The German star rings in the season as

stern, whose light cuts through the darkness and leads the way to revelation. In Arabic,

the haunting word shihab means flame. How can we deny this light shining in the

darkness, regardless of which word a culture uses to say it? We all light our candles this

time of year and watch the flames dance in the night.

I like the word shihab because it is the given name of a poet I admire, Naomi Shihab

Nye, American-born daughter of a Palestinian journalist and an American Montessori

teacher. For years she has worked to bridge cultural and religious differences, to heal the

divide that keeps us from being able to communicate with one another. Her voice shines

like a candle flame in this season’s dark night of suffering and war.

Her poem “Red Brocade,” begins: "The Arabs used to say,/When a stranger appears at

your door,/feed him for three days/before asking who he is,/where he’s come from,

/where he’s headed./That way he’ll have strength/enough to answer./Or, by then you’ll be

/such good friends/you don’t care. "

"Let’s go back to that," she pleads in the line that follows. No matter the language used, this

time of year we call out to light, not only to the flame of the sun returning to our

hemisphere, but also to the light of understanding. This season challenges us to believe

that our words for that light matter. Call it luz, lumiere, shihab, tara, it means the same

thing: the realization that we are called by the light to live together in peace.