The medium is the message

The medium we call light

has many shapes.

From the muted glowing lamps

and flaming torches

that illuminated the dark hours

of centuries long past

to the LCD screens that occupy

our walls and desks

and inhabit our pockets in the present age.

Light, so long cosseted and valued

as the first defence against fear and evil,

has become the plaything

of the distracted and the self-obsessed.

Dancing with inconsequentiality,

light’s frivolous tweetings

declare the hollowness of contemporary culture

and the victory of fashion.

The medium is the message*.

We do well to recall

the pre-technological power of light,

the dim flickering flame

shining alone to defy the encroaching dark

and to define the limits

of greed and cruelty.

We remember, too, one who stepped boldly

into the midst of darkness to be light;

whose speakings and touchings,

and groanings and dyings,

enfleshed a word of grace,

such that those who looked upon him,

and the ones who heard his stories,

would see that light,

comprehend its message,

and be captured by it.

* Marshall McLuhan

© Ken Rookes 2012