Dear Ones of St. Columba's,

I don't know about you, but I have become very aware of light/dark metaphors and language this Advent. It's because we are focusing on the goodness of the dark, here at St. C's. When Meghan and I chose this as our theme and focus for Advent, I was only peripherally aware of just how much light vs. dark language threads through our hymns, prayers, scriptures, and even our facebook memes this time of year. As I encounter them each week in worship, study, and scrolling social media I feel a tug at my mind and my heart that asks " what is being lost here? What is the cost of this solar spirituality?"

Don't get me wrong - I love lights in the darkness. Andrew and I have an aspirational goal to become "those people" on the block when it comes to our Christmas light display, and we are making progress.  There is nothing quite as magical as candlelight in my opinion. And, I don't mind admitting to you that the only reason I don't have one of those sparkly willow-branch tree stick light lamps on my Amazon wishlist is that I cannot decide which one. I agree, on a lot of levels, that there is magic and comfort to be found in light, especially this time of year when the sun goes down early and the grey days don't seem to offer much relief from the dark nights. 

This Advent what has changed for me, however, is that I am noticing how lights need darkness in order to be magical. Christmas lights don't work in sunlight, candles aren't all that amazing in a well-lit room, and the whole reason I want one of those lamps is so I can turn off all the other lights in the room and watch it in the darkness. 

Next week Christmas will arrive, as it does each year. Wednesday we will have our greening party, where we cover trees with lights that will need darkness in order to really shine. And on Christmas Eve we will gather to sing and celebrate and we will end our services the way we always do - by turning out the lights so we can experience darkness (and candlelight) together. 

Here is my hope, sweet church, as we move from the quiet dark of Advent into the blazing light of Christmas. Let's not forget the presence or the gifts of the darkness. Let's remember that possibility, creativity, and hope all come from dark places within us - places of not knowing, not seeing, and not yet imagining. I think we will continue to need this wisdom throughout the season of Christmas and Epiphany. We will need it throughout the rest of our cold, dark winter that will eventually turn into spring. 

I will leave you with a quote from one of the great Black women theorists and writers of our time - a woman who was among the first to offer a critique of the binary of light vs darkness - Audre Lorde. In her book Sister Outsider Lorde looks for goodness in all sorts of dark places - the darkness of silence, in her own Blackness, in not knowing. And she finds all sorts of possibility there.

“These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling.”

I submit to you that darkness and light need each other, and that as Christmas approaches the child who arrives among us comes from the darkness - the darkness of the womb, of longing, and of hope. Let us keep the darkness close this Christmas season, and discover all it has to teach us about who we are, and how much what we see and know needs the balance and creativity of what we cannot see and know, in order to be whole.

with care and gratitude,

Alissa