Friday, January 15, 2016

January 15, 2016

Perhaps you are as aware as I am these days of the play of light and dark. On cloudy days when the sun is covered as well as distant, I turn on a lamp in my study. Daily, there is increasing light on my late afternoon drives. My amaryllis seems to glow orange at suppertime against the dusk in the dining room window.

The cover picture on the bulletin I am enclosing is the pulpit banner for worship in these brightening weeks. The play of silver and navy blue is lovely, and the velvet texture is warm. This is the image in your church every Sunday morning in January.

Perhaps like me, you find darkness and light not so much opposites as complementary. Some say that darkness represents bad things. Often in our scripture, though, darkness is the time of love and hope: out of the darkness covering the earth God says “let there be light”; the shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night and were sent to the Christ Child; by sunup on Easter morning the resurrection had occurred: as they say on the east coast, “there he was, gone”. Loving, hopeful, creative, transformative things happen under cover of darkness.

We went to Yellowknife after Christmas. Our children were born there. In the north the beauty of the night sky is transformed very slowly by the rising sun, pink and orange herself. Later the daylight is absorbed by twilight and northern lights playing against the deepening darkness.

My hope for you is that in the play of light and dark this winter you are finding rest, beauty, and joy. My hope is that in the mix of our daily lives - meals, conversations, anxieties, realizations, love – that the good life God has given you feels to be part of a long fulfillment of God’s promises. May you find peace in the betwixt-and-between nature of our holy lives.

Blessings to you.