“In the beginning, before god created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless, and there was a great darkness that covered the abyss.

Then god said, let there be light.” GN 1:1 – 3

On the first day of winter we experience the shortest day of the year. The day is not less than twenty-four hours, but it is the day with the least amount of sunlight. Since that day each day will begin to get just a little bit longer. So, it seems very appropriate that we celebrate the coming of light into the world. There is powerful symbolism in light and darkness. Darkness symbolizing chaos and ignorance, and the product of ignorance – fear. There are plenty of other interpretations of darkness, even an association with evil. Certainly darkness is a large part of the telling of the Priestly creation story which is part of the primordial chaos that God brought into order and defeated with the creation of light on the first day. Every culture has/had a celebration in the winter months celebrating the coming of light into the world; celebrating the fact that although darkness may overpower us for awhile, light wins in the end.

There is a lot of darkness.

We are still reeling from the darkness of the horror and tragedy of Newtown, CT.

“Rachel mourns her children,

She refuses to be consoled

Because her children are no more.”

(Jer 31)

Also, Dec 19 –  marks the anniversary  of when my brother-in-law, who was my room mate and friend for over four years before he married my sister, was forced into the backseat of his own car at gunpoint, duct-taped, driven to a remote location, forced to kneel in the middle of the road, shot execution style, and left there to die

                O dark dark dark.  They all go dark,

                The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant. . .

                And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,

                Nobody’s funeral, for there is no one to bury.

                I said to my soul, BE STILL and let the darkness come upon you

                Which shall be the darkness of God. . .

                Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;

                I said to my soul, BE STILL and wait without hope

                For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.

(TS Eliot)

This all happened in 2001 as  “The Fellowship of the Rings” opened.  I saw it on opening night.  But John died with the tickets in his pocket.  A fan of the books, he never got to see the movie.

I thought of the words of Frodo lamenting to Gandalf, “I wish none of this had happened.” And Gandalf replied, “So do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

The darkness of Death is the ever present reality that looms over us so palpably that we all go out of our way to ignore it.  There were things that I wish I had said to John.  I wonder if there was anything that John wanted to say to me.  What things had John planned on doing that are now left undone. Ours is to decide what to do with the NOW.  What choices am I making right now?  Who am I affecting?  What have I done that is either so great or so foul?  Have I helped or hurt?  Or worst of all, have I done nothing.

Where is the light?

We are in a season of darkness, literally and ritually.  We are in a living reminder of the chaotic darkness of the pre-creation abyss. But there is hope. There is the dawn.

“the people who sit in darkness

Have seen a great light,

On those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death

Light has arisen.”

MT 4:16 (IS 9:1)

This Sunday we will light the final candle of the Advent wreath. Reminding ourselves in a small ritual way, that “. . .the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – JN 1:5

Where is the light? Where is The light that shines in the darkness of our experience?

The answer is simple and hard:

“You are the light.” MT 5:14

 

 

 

“I will turn their mourning into joy (god says)

I will console and gladden them in their sorrows.”

(Jer 31:13)