I find as I get older the times and places I use to need
light, I don’t need it so much any more. But, there are times and places when I
didn’t need it, now I do. For instance,
when I was a child, I always needed to have my bedroom door open and the hall
light on. The light kept the night at a
manageable distance. I could sleep, but
I before I slept, I could feel certain of my surroundings and safety. Now – I need no light to fall asleep, and I
prefer the dark. I trust the dark of my
bedroom and my home. As I said yesterday, it is a sanctuary of rest.
However, now, at 57 years old, I need more light to read than I did when I
was younger. I prefer to drive in the
daytime because the lights of oncoming cars at night create distortions and
make me nervous. I don’t like those
limitations. The dark is fine when I
want to rest…but when I want to do something or go somewhere, turn on the
light, please!
As I said yesterday – we celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 largely
because it was an annual time of celebration in many northern hemisphere
ancient cultures as the days were getting perceptibly longer after the winter
solstice. Spring would soon be around
the corner: new crops, warmer weather, a new lease on life for another year. It wasn’t a big leap to build on celebrating
God’s light come into the world through the Bethlehem baby – who would later be
quoted to say “I am the Light of the World.”
He would also be quoted to say, “YOU are the light of the
world,” meaning, of course, all of us.
So, one of the sanctuaries that Christmas offers is the
Sanctuary of Light – the light of day getting longer, the Jesus Light come into the world, and the
hope and promise that in some way - each of us too, will be and are lights of
the world as well. That’s a lot of
light.
We look forward to Christmas to remind us of all that light
that can chase away some of the dark uncertainties and obscurities we still,
like children, hold on to. We need at
least once a year when we can remind ourselves that we are the Lighters, we
have that power, we have that gift. Darkness is only absence…light is something. It
is energy, an energy that knits us together.
We can light our candles, we can put lights on our trees and bushes, and
even our deck our houses out in grand displays, to remind us of the stings of
energy that connect us.
The Sanctuary of Light reminds us that we are not alone in
this universe of ours. The endless view
of stars in the night sky reminds us that there is something greater. The
promise of eons-old light rays reaching earth, reaching our eyes and soothing our puny
fears, reminds us that there is something good behind all this cosmos,
something trustworthy, something that wants us to see and know, to be warmed
and empowered, to then to shine ourselves out. No
darkness can overcome that!
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