“Don’t forget to turn the lights on!” “She’s my guiding light” …”But there’s light at the end of the tunnel” …”Her eyes light up whenever she sees him”… “I’m beginning to se the light”…”that result could be light years away…”

There are literally a deluge of expressions referring to light in our everyday usage. And when December comes around, nothing speaks to us quite as forcefully of the coming Christmas season than lights! Every town and city schedules its own parade culminating in the first lighting of their biggest pine tree, often on the town’s common! Homes, storefronts and even vehicles don lights for all to see. Why? What is the human fascination with light? Why do we seem so drawn to it…so much so that it’s a childlike reaction when seeing it?

In these long winter months in the northern climes especially, days shorten and many of us resist the longer hours of darkness and long for Spring and more sunlight. This resistance connects us intimately with our ancestors who never knew the luxuries of electricity and homes with heat in every room. Then much more than now, but for the same reason they huddled by the fireside and lit candles. The glow from that kind of light is much softer and kindles in our hearts ancient longings. Candlelight has a way of directing our thoughts to pivotal things in life like relationships, beliefs, and a reckoning with WHY you and I are HERE! Ever notice how lighting candles and dimming artificial light changes the ambiance of a room? Even children pay attention and sense something is “different,” and calm and quiet down a bit.

The human heart learns pretty quickly that darkness in the form of loss, disappointment, illness, and violence is an unescapable part of life, and that it can only be overcome with Light. This Light also comes in forms! In the form of you and me “turning the lights on” for others…”becoming for others “guiding lights” and assuring them of hope “at the end of their tunnels.” We are all called to “light up” when we see God’s face in all the faces we meet! As Christmas draws closer this year, pray for the wisdom to “see the light,” even in the darkest spaces of our world. It’s there!! It’s in the smiles and giggles of children It’s in the sounds of Christmas we are privileged to hear once again this year! It’s in the generostiy of people responding to so many needs. See and embrace all the Lights that you see for what they really are: tangible proof that God, who once stooped down to become one of us, is still among us as the Light of the world! BE yourself a bearer of light in all the small and big ways that you can be!

Then…one light at a time, the peace on earth we long for and sing about will not be “light years away…” but be right here in our midst…very near indeed!

Wishing you all tender December moments, and hearts full of Light this Christmas!