Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light... That's how the prayer for Advent I begins. It puts the responsibility for what we can do on us, and the means to do it on God.
I like that. This does not ask for the stomping of Satan, the hastening of the end of time, the slaughter of our "enemies" (those whose theology and views on life may be different from ours, or strange to us.)
It simply asks God to help us stay focused on what we've committed to be about: compassion, tolerance, reverence... a small flame of light that the darkness may not comprehend, but cannot overcome. Too many times we snuff our own candles out of fear, weariness, boredom. Then the works of darkness become our own works, no matter how we dress them up with righteous labels.
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