November 17th, 2025
Asher was excited about going on the lantern walk with the other children from the Waldorf school. He had decorated a glass jar in his kindergarten class to serve as a lamp for the walk at night. He had also learned a song in class that he used to entertain us at home during the days prior to the event. He would spontaneously sing,
“Lanterns in the moonlight, by my side. Soon we will return back home!”
Actually, the lyrics are a bit different, but that’s what he sang, and he sounded really good.
The walk was scheduled for yesterday evening. All day, Asher kept asking us,
“When are we going?”
We answered, “Later, when it gets dark.”
He smiled and said, “This is the best day ever!”
Sunset was at 4:26 yesterday, and my wife, Karin, and I hustled Asher into the car at 4:15 to make the half hour drive to the Tamarack Waldorf School. We got there and saw that other young children were gathering in the parking lot with their caregivers. Faculty members handed out lanterns to the kids (each lantern had the child’s name on it). People mingled and waited for the festivities to start. As the sunset faded, we all moved into the basement of the school to gather for a story and some songs.
The basement was dimly lit with a plethora of lamps and tiny electric candles. The lanterns had these little battery-powered lights in them too. Many years ago, when our own children went on the walk, the lanterns had real candles burning inside of them. That gave the journey a much more old-school feel to it, but the flickering flames on the actual candles tended to go out when it was windy, and darkness once again held sway.
The little kids together in front of the adults on a mat. The 4th grade teacher gave a brief explanation of why the school hosted an annual lantern walk. He told the crowd that the lantern walk tradition went back to the celebration of Martinmas, also known as the Feast of St. Martin of Tours (a holy day on the calendar of the Catholic Church that is celebrated on November 11th). He explained that St. Martin was a wealthy man who shared his cloak with a poor beggar. Martinmas was (and is) about caring for those who are in need. It is also about spreading our inner light in a world that is gradually getting darker, physically and spiritually. The teacher did not go into the religious aspects of the story of St. Martin, which is too bad because those parts are both beautiful and meaningful. However, we live in a diverse secular society and many of the children and parents gathered for the lantern walk do not share Christian beliefs. The teacher was still able to make the purpose of the walk clear: we were going outside with our lanterns to bring light to a world that has grown cold and dark.
Another teacher told a story about “The Lantern King”. It was different tale of a rich man who helped the poor. It reminded me a lot of the story of the Buddha. After that the music teacher led us in song. I liked “Rise up o Flame” It goes:
“Rise up o flame! By thy light glowing, bring to us beauty.
Vision and joy, out of eternity, into this day is born.
Into eternity, it will return.”
Once the singing was done, we filed out of the basement and started walking toward Pulaski Park, a tiny green space a couple blocks from the school. To get to the park we had to walk past Wolski’s Tavern, a landmark on Milwaukee’s lower eastside. The place was doing a brisk business on that evening. It would have been tempting to stop in there for a beer.
Each child’s lantern had handle made of wool fiber. The handles looked great, but they lacked tensile strength. The handles tore loose on several of the lanterns. Asher’s lantern was one of those.
Asher was extremely upset that the strap was broken on his lantern. Karin tried to repair it, but that just infuriated Asher because we were falling behind the rest of the group. He shouted,
“I want to catch up! I don’t want to be the last ones!”
He darted across the dark street, and I yelled at him for doing it,
“DON’T DO THAT! If you do it again, I’ll be really pissed off!”
Karin fixed the handle, but Asher didn’t want it anymore.
He cried, “Give it to somebody else!”
She did.
We caught up with the crowd of lantern bearers. They had formed a large circle in the green space. Then they all began singing. Being as we were in the city, our small lanterns did not produce much extra light, but they made a difference, and that’s all anyone can do.
After the songs, we all slowly left the park to return to the school. The woman who led the people back to Tamarack sang about “Lanterns in the Moonlight”. Asher softly sang along. He was tired and frustrated. He thought there would have been games or other fun things to do. He told me,
“I don’t want to go to the lantern walk again. All I could do was sing!”
True.
We came home and Asher ate some snacks. A popsicle made his mood a bit better. I read for a while and went to bed.
Asher came into the bed later. He didn’t doze off immediately. He wanted to chat. He looked up at the stars that shown through the skylight and asked me about them.
He said, “Are they little circles in the sky?”
I answered, “The stars are like the sun, but really far away.”
He replied, “So, they are circles.”
“Yeah.”
Then he laid his head on my shoulder. He grew quiet and sang the school’s morning verse to himself,
“Morning has come, night is away. We rise with the sun and welcome the day.”
He paused. Then he sang the verse again. I sang it with him.
He has a lovely voice.
Frank is Emptiness 