last night and this morning, I have been meditating on the day between friday and sunday.  saturday has held a lot of meaning for me over the last couple of years, and particularly as I have entered into the fight against trafficking.  last night in the quiet before I fell asleep, I heard “saturday is the day the darkness thinks it has won” and as I thought about that, I realized that I have been there - places where darkness thinks it has won. fields ave, where thousands of girls are sexually exploited every day, is a place where you can feel a sick sort of glee in the celebration of darkness’ believed victory.  it’s flaunted in the brazen way men walk down the street dragging women by their wrists, in the music and the lights and the feeling of being at a strange sort of carnival.  signs of life are not simply threatened, they are mocked.  the glimmers of hope that hold on don’t cast enough light for shadows to be made visible.

…it looks like darkness has taken over.  it feels like darkness has taken over.  

this morning, praying with Bron and a new friend, Becc, (both of whom are fellow abolitionists) Bron prayed that saturday is when trafficking happens.  that the day between is when selling people into slavery exists, because darkness thinks it wins.  

we know that sunday comes, and that informs the way we observe saturday. the people who loved Jesus when he died didn’t know what would happen on sunday.  but in the midst of such intense pain, deep inside of the grieving they felt, I believe that they might have heard a whisper of hope.  because somehow the hope of life cannot be silenced, even in the places where darkness is convinced that it has won.  even when we want to shush that voice, to give in to the weight of what is threatening us and stop trying to stay alive, there is a spark that inexplicably holds on to us, speaking the truth of a love we know exists even though we cannot quite remember it…

I have heard that whisper in places of intense darkness.  I have seen the light of that hope flicker in the eyes of women who have been living inside of that darkness.  I have felt a deeper sense of saturday than ever before.  

sunday came, and is coming, and darkness does not have the last word, even in the lives of those who have been enslaved.