Going Dark, Seeking Light

The lights are going out in my neighborhood.

Not all of them, but in addition to the occasional expired lamp, three whole strings of streetlights are powered off. Honestly, I hadn't noticed until I rode my bicycle to the drugstore last week, when I suddenly realized, "These sidewalks are dark."

It's not because of bad bulbs: the wires have been stolen. The practice of copper wire theft has been a hot item in local news stories, but until now I gave it little thought. Yet this is big business: skilled thieves who, with the exception of the occasional gruesome electrocution death, have figured out how to remove miles of connected electrical wire, and recyclers who look the other way as they slip handfuls of cash to the criminals.

Copper theft is maddening, inconvenient, and dangerous to residents, and overwhelming to maxed-out city budgets. In our city, prevention measures have served only to slightly slow the perpetrators. There is no light at the end of this tunnel.

As I pedaled home with my bottle of cough syrup the question on my mind was this: What kind of society are we to have enabled this level of self-destruction? I know they are a relative few, but what drives the thieves to dismantle their own city? Streetlights are a basic city infrastructure item, like sewers, roads, and sidewalks, and without them, the very sense of being a city breaks down.

It's like cancer, when cells in one's own body attack and destroy the very source of their life. In building its own enterprise, the tumor kills its host and itself.

Or to illustrate it another way, it's like my hand demanding my arms and legs give up pants and shirt so the hand can make a warm glove in winter. Now imagine standing in the cold with gloves but no clothes: how long would the hand survive?

So my question again, "How did we produce individuals who tear apart the fabric of society?"

Could it be the logical conclusion of our individualistic culture? After all, the goals of individualism are self-fulfillment, self-gratification and self-preservation. In earlier times, our society recognized selfish personal drives needed to be second-place to the greater good of society. That's why for centuries no one thought to question foundational blocks of society such as marriage, work, faith, and basic morality (that activities such as murder, theft, and adultery were basically wrong).

But has the push for personal fulfillment grown to the point of displacing society's necessary integrity? For some, yes. For example, the person who steals copper wire - at great personal risk - has decided their own needs are more important than the safety and well-being of entire neighborhoods. Their selfishness trumps the higher value of a functioning society.

Logically, if they steal enough copper (and I include the recyclers in the allegation of theft), the city could collapse. After all, our city is close to going broke, and simply cannot afford the repairs. In doing so, they destroy the very society they steal from, thus pushing their own fulfillment further out of reach.

A Biblical worldview teaches us to subject selfish drives for the benefit of others, but admits that on our own, such a choice is short-lived and ultimately impossible. Only by the grace of God can any person choose a life of love over a life of self-service. Galatians 5:13 says, "For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love."

There is no answer to this except for a spiritual awakening. The irony of a society falling into literal darkness due to spiritual darkness is not lost on me. And only as spiritual light shines will we find an answer for physical light as well. Only in the gospel are we taught to love like Jesus did, laying our own lives down for others, and in so doing, find real, abundant life. As John said of Jesus,^"In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness" (John 1:4-5b).