Rachel Fitch
Sid & Cathy Batts Pastoral Resident
As we enter winter and daylight hours are waning, as we walk through Advent, the theme of light and darkness is all around us. As each candle in the wreath is lit, we move closer toward the light that symbolizes Christ’s coming.
As we sit in this time, waiting, preparing, reflecting, waiting some more, we sit in hope, in joyful anticipation. We await the coming of the light, the coming of the Christ child. While the world bustles around us, we strive to take a few moments to still our hearts and minds. We strive to look to the light, Christ’s light, shining through the little cracks all around us, pointing us to the kingdom to come.
This week I invite you to look for the light. Be it the light of the rising sun, the light of an advent candle, or the light brought through the smile of a friend or kindness of a stranger. Search for glimpses of light breaking through the darkness, and know that you are loved. You are loved by the Creator of the universe, the one who came in flesh to save us, the one who lingers in the Spirit all about us.
In Peace, Rachel
P.S. If you’d like to read a lovely poem about light, John O’Donohue’s piece “For Light” is below.
Light cannot see in things.
That is what the dark is for:
Minding the interior,
Nurturing the draw of growth
Through places where death
In its own way turns into life.
In the glare of neon times,
Let our eyes not be worn
By surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.
That our thoughts may be true light,
Finding their way into words
Which have the weight of shadow
To hold the layers of truth.
That we never place our trust
In minds claimed by empty light,
Where one-sided certainties
Are driven by false desire.
When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.
That the searching of our minds
Be equal to the oblique
Crevices and corners where
The mystery continues to dwell,
glimmering in fugitive light.
When we are confined inside
The dark house of suffering
That moonlight might find a window.
When we become false and lost
That the severe noon-light
Would cast our shadow clear.
When we love, that dawn-light
Would lighten our feet
Upon the waters.
As we grow old, that twilight
Would illuminate treasure
In the fields of memory.
And when we come to search for God,
Let us first be robed in night,
Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rust of light
Spread slowly inside
The color and stillness
Of a found world.
— John O’Donohue, “For Light,” To Bless the Space Between Us
