In Cook County many folks know that “the shortest day” of the year is December 21. On that day we receive 8 hours, 23 minutes of sunlight (if the skies weren’t gray, at least). For some, that amount is just toooo short. Last week I overhead a comment while in line at the Java Moose: “Maybe darkness is overtaking us; maybe the days will just stay stuck in being short.”
I don’t know if the person thought about the Gospel of John. Maybe they simply thought of sunlight, daylight, sun above the earth’s horizon light.
But the Gospel refers to an entirely other form of light: the light of God’s love and presence has no barriers of season, clock, or time of life. Indeed, it often is most knowable when dark-of-night or dark-in-life overtake us.
Poet, artist, and pastor in the Methodist church, Jan Richardson knows that darkness intimately. Two years ago her husband suddenly became ill and died. Pastor Richardson wrote How the Light Comes for Christmas Day. It is about the Light of Christ (in her book, Circles of Grace). Her prayer accompanies, “May we open our eyes to the luminous moments that come bearing the grace and love of Christ our Light. May we receive illumination enough for this step, this breath, this day.”
How the Light Comes
I cannot tell you how the light comes. What I know is that it is more ancient than imagining. That it travels across an astounding expanse to reach us.
That it loves searching out what is hidden, what is lost, what is forgotten or in peril or in pain.
That it has a fondness for the body, for finding its way toward flesh, for tracing the edges of form, for shining forth through the eye, the hand, the heart. I cannot tell you how the light comes, but that it does. That it will. That it works its way into the deepest dark that enfolds you, though it may seem long ages in coming or arrive in a shape you did not foresee.
And so: may we this day turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces, to let it find us. May we bend our bodies, to follow the arc it makes. May we open and open more and open still to the blessed light that comes.
Amen.
Let us pray: We thank you Lord God, for the moments of illumination that walk with us, and for the love of Christ, your very Word made flesh, the light of all. Your Light is light that darkness cannot extinguish. You illuminate for us each step, each breath, each day, and we thank you. Amen.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hovland.
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