Dear Friends,
For a long time I had terrible insomnia. Well, to be fair, I still would except I’ve built an elaborate set of safeguards against long, sleepless nights. The worst thing about my insomnia, though, was that because of my health problems, I often spent the night in pain and uncomfortable or stuck in the awareness that I was just going to need to nap the next day. There was no catching up with the cycle and as much as I have always considered myself a morning person, I became a night owl by strange biological force.
When I think about this past Sunday’s bridesmaids asleep when they are meant to be vigilant or read this coming Sunday’s Epistle, in which Paul reminds his friends and fellow early Christians that we are people of the day, that we must keep awake, I think about those nighttime hours. About those left behind in the dark or cast out into it in some of these central passages. And I think about what it means to be awake in the night.
Before The Light Returns
As we approach Advent (or find ourselves in it if you participate in an extended Advent), we confront a slight contradiction in our calendars. Advent, the season that ushers in the returning light, begins while we are still in the darkest days of the year, while that darkness is still building. December 21st is the longest night, but we light the candles. We prepare. It is, as Barbara Brown Taylor writes in Learning to Walk in the Dark, “The good news is that dark and light, faith and doubt, divine absence and presence, do not exist at opposite poles. Instead, they exist with and within each other, like distinct waves that roll out of the same ocean and roll back into it again.”
In all those sleepless nights, the good news was that I could always turn on the light. I could always, if I needed to, nudge my wife awake so that I didn’t need to be alone. Even as a teenager, I knew what it was to hear the phone ring in the middle of the night because a friend was reaching out from the darkness, and while I grew up with few stars, I would search the sky for the passing lights of airplanes, the world awake and alive in the dark.
Writing about day and night, waking and sleeping, Paul closes this part of his missive to the Thessalonians with the key piece of things, “Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.” And isn’t this the difference between waking and sleeping, whether we are carrying each other’s burdens and lifting up each other’s gifts? In this, there is no casting out into outer darkness, at least not if someone else chooses to remain alongside the one who is cast out.
Lights For This Time
On the first day of creation, God gave us the gifts of darkness and light. God separated them – the dark, the first thing, that which was everything until it wasn’t anymore, and the light. And when we tell the Creation story in Godly Play, we talk about this new light; it isn’t just the light in a flashlight or a candle or in your headlights at night. It is the light from which all light comes. And these words are a reminder that there are so many different kinds of light.
There’s something special about having all of these words for light, all of these different ways we interact with light. In particular, it’s a reminder in this season (or any time you are having a difficult season of life) that you do not have to be the light. Indeed, even at the best of times, we need to share in different parts of the work of light – as Jen Willhoite of Cobbleworks breaks it down, there is the shining, but there is also reflecting and enlightening.
Think of the moon. The moon is not a source of light. The moon reflects the sun’s light. But ask any poet about the moon; we all have poems about it. We all watch the moon, it’s shifting forms, narrowing and darkening, growing and shining down on us. We turn to the moon even as it isn’t the source of light because it reflects a greater light.
And, as I sit here typing, I do so by the light of a lamp. I don’t look at the lamp. The lamp enlightens what I want to look at and I rely on it. It reveals details and allows me to focus. All of the modes of light are essential.
This Advent, what if we made these different ways of being light a piece of our devotion. Each day, each week, how can we Shine, Reflect, & Enlighten?
Shine: Engage in good works. Help someone. Offer care. Express love.
Reflect: Support someone else’s good work. Give praise and speak positively about others. Help them see their own goodness.
Enlighten: Highlight important causes. Learn something new and share it with family and friends.
I Wonder what else these words might mean to you and how you might practice these things this coming Advent?
Flames & Mirrors
As we continue to prepare for Advent together, a few more resources for this season:
Mess Makes Meaning: My dear friends at the Godly Play Foundation and two fellow members of the Trainer Class of 2022, Raenelle Tauro and Joy Studer are hosting a new podcast, and their first episode will help you support children during the stressful holiday season. A piece of the Everyday Godly Play project, their first guest is one of our dear seasoned trainers, pastor, mom, and grandma Cynthia Insko. Join them in this new piece of an important project of supporting children’s spirituality!
Share A Story: Did you know that Glenys Nellist, author of many of our beloved liturgical season texts, including ‘Twas the Season of Advent, is also the creator of the children’s book favorite Little Mole? I know from my own work that many of the children I know have heard Little Mole stories somewhere along the way and now he’s ready to be with you in the car, in the kitchen or anywhere else you can listen to podcasts! Glenys recently read Little Mole Gives Thanks on the StoryJumpers podcast and you can listen here.
Forma is just around the corner! The annual Forma conference is in January and they’ve been rolling out workshop titles on social media. Check out some of the great titles and speakers and check back with Forma regularly to see if there will be a regional gathering near you.
The Feast of St. Nicholas is right after the first Sunday in Advent. Unfortunately, we don’t have an official Godly Play Foundation video for this story, but there are lots of other ways to learn about the boy who grew up to be called St. Nicholas. You can check out the St. Nicholas Center, which has a wide variety of resources. One great way to mark St. Nicholas’s feast day, though? By purchasing gifts for a program like Toys for Tots or other services in your area. We say in the Godly Play story that young Nicholas always wanted to give a gift to the Christ child, but because Jesus lived a long, long time ago, he instead looked for Christ in everyone. He was especially fond of children and he used his late parent’s money to help the poor and sick and to give gifts to people.
St. Lucy’s Day follows just a week behind St. Nicholas and as a Norwegian kid growing up at the peak of the historic American Girl dolls, which included Kirsten dressed for St. Lucia with her crown of candles, this one has a special place for me. One way to mark this day is by making and eating Lussekatter or St. Lucia buns, which get their golden color from saffron. Of course, if that feels a little ambitious, it could be a great deal of fun to pick out an array of other golden-colored foods or foods that remind you of light or candles to eat on this day.
The frost has arrived in my corner of the world. We turn the lights up early. May we be the bright, glowing fire that keeps someone else warm and may we be warmed by those around us.
Peace,
Bird
I keep coming back to read this because I love it so much. Shine, Reflect, Enlighten...all of these are my "star words" for the year. Thank you! Thank you! I look forward to continuing to read your words.