Something the darkness can't take

I never thought I would like murder mystery TV shows, but I've discovered I do.

After enjoying seven seasons of Grantchester, about a vicar who helps the local police inspector solve murders in a village near Cambridge, England, I've recently been watching Endeavour. Set in Oxford, England in the 1960s, it's an excellent series that focuses on Endeavour Morse, a moody young detective working with his mentor, Inspector Thursday, to solve complex murder cases. 

(Hmmm... two shows about university towns with lots of murders... considering I live in a university town, should I worry? Or should I just get busy solving crimes?)

In an early episode, Morse is rattled by a psychopathic murderer whom they have just captured. Before he is taken away, the killer makes pointed comments about Morse's painful past and how the two of them are alike: brilliant but lonely.

As they stand on the roof of a college building after catching the killer, Morse asks Inspector Thursday how he does it -- how he can leave his work at the front door when he goes home to his family at the end of the day.

 image from Endeavour, "Fugue"

"'Cause I have to," replies Thursday grimly. "A case like this'll tear the heart right out of a man."

Then he says, "Find something worth defending."

Morse says, "I thought I had found something." (He doesn't elaborate.)

"Music?" Thursday asks, referring to Morse's love of opera and classical music. "I guess music is as good as anything. Go home, put your best record on -- loud as it'll play -- and with every note, you remember: that's something that the darkness couldn't take from you."

 image from Endeavour, "Fugue"

I've thought about these lines a lot since watching this episode. They remind me a bit of Sam in the movie depiction of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers, urging Frodo to hold onto the fact "that there's some good in this world... and it's worth fighting for."

I noted that Thursday doesn't say, "Find a cause or a project and put all your effort into it." There are definitely times when we need to throw ourselves behind a worthy cause. But not everyone is in a position to pursue a big project, become an influencer, blaze new trails, fight big battles. I think the deeper point is that anything beautiful and meaningful, anything you love (even something that's been misused, as the killer in the Endeavour episode had misused music by basing his crimes on scenes from various operas), can be a force that resists darkness, that can't be destroyed by the evil in this world.

I was going to continue this post with a list of things that might fit this description. Music. Poetry. Birds. Sunsets. Sunrises. But to be honest, it sounded a bit feeble. And anyway, Thursday says "music is as good as anything" -- as if it doesn't even matter that much what the thing is. So there doesn't seem to be any point in making a list.

Then today I read this paragraph in poet Maggie Smith's fantastic new memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful:

What now? I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.* But here's the thing about carrying light with you. No matter where you go, and no matter what you find -- or don't find -- you change the darkness just by entering it. You clear a path through it.

And it hit me: yes, we need to find something worth defending, something the darkness can't take away ... but we also are something the darkness can't take away. Just by being truthfully, genuinely ourselves we make a difference. Who we are can be an act of resistance to the forces that seek to destroy and divide. We can fight the darkness by being the carriers of light that we already are, and by letting our light reveal everything -- and everyone -- that is good and beautiful.

I find that well worth pondering. And I love it when the things I'm watching and reading, whether murder mystery or memoir, come together to tell me something.

*"I am out with lanterns, looking for myself": line from Emily Dickinson