THE SHORTEST DAY OF THE YEAR

December 21, 2017. . . This was originally written three years ago.
Having  watched several sunrises and sunsets at the beach this year, I have again been reminded of how short the days are just now.  Today is the Winter Solstice . . . the shortest day of the year.  Which means that now the days will again lengthen --- a positive experience for those of us for whom 'cold' and 'dark' are not preferences :

      For the next 182 1/2 days, the 'trend' is positive  . . . at least for those of us who prefer more daylight.  A local meteorologist reminded viewers that yesterday was the shortest day of the year.  From here til June 21st, the days grow incrementally longer. Daylight lasting well past 8 p.m. (with the assistance of Daylight Savings Time) remains my preference.  Darkness at 5 p.m. can be, well, depressing, and not just in the clinical sense.

      'Dark' and 'cold' are a mean combination for many.  Often the former carries an undertone of things dangerous or evil or depressing. SAD ... Seasonal Affective Disorder . . . complicates life for many and if often treated by use of a 'light box'. 

    Along with the dark winter of the calendar, there can also be a dark winter of the spirit that begs for more light.  The American theologian, Martin Marty, wrote powerfully of such in his A Cry of Absence:Reflections for the Winter of the Heart. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and teacher, recently offered some different perspectives on benefits of darkness in her  book, Learning to Walk in the Dark. (No book reviews offered here.  I found substance in both.) 

    Now it is almost Christmas.  Christian theologians who note that the  actual date of Jesus's
birth is unknown maintain that a time near the Winter Solstice is a fitting symbolic dating for the advent of One considered by many to be 'the Light of the World'. That the dating was an appropriation of non-Christian cultures's traditions does not negate the symbolism.

    Yesterday, a friend posted a poem by Edward Hays, a Catholic priest.  I had never known of him or his writing. His website looks interesting and I have bookmarked it for further reading of his blogposts.
But his poem captures much that I had felt stirring within as the seasons change and evidences of 'darkness' proliferate :
  
 "The dark shadow of space leans over us . . . .
We are mindful that the darkness of greed, exploitation, and hatred
also lengthens its shadow over our small planet Earth.
As our ancestors feared death and evil and all the dark powers of winter,
We fear that the darkness of war, discrimination, and selfishness
may doom us and our planet to an eternal winter.

May we find hope in the lights we have kindled on this sacred night,
hope in one another and in all who form the web-work of peace and justice
  that spans the world.

In the heart of every person on this Earth
burns the spark of luminous goodness;
in no heart is there total darkness.
May we who have celebrated this winter solstice
by our lives and service, by our prayers and love,
Call forth from one another the light and the love
that is hidden in every heart.
   Amen.
     
   Although the writer of the Gospel of John insisted that people love the dark because their deeds are evil, what of that 'spark' that craves greater clarity of understanding and action?  Maybe all the Christmas lights are pushbacks against enveloping darkness.
To me, the dying words of American short story writer O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) "turn up the lights, I don't want to go home in the dark" and those of Goethe, "Do open the shutter of the bedroom so that more light may enter"  are human echoes of God's "Let there be Light".

     An ancient prophet promised that "the people who walk in darkness shall see a great light". Another: "Arise, shine, for your light has come !"

     May the darkness and the cold not overwhelm us!
Perhaps that comes close to what Christmas is about.
    Satchel