This piece originally appeared in the Eastertide 2024 volume of Images of Divine Things: A Journal of the Arts, published by and containing contributions from attenders of Christ The Redeemer Anglican Church and Christ The King Anglican Church; Christina Snyder, editor. I share it now on the day that matches its title, as we settle into pre-winter’s dark and await the days when the light increases again.
I’ve been thinking about scarcity and abundance over this year, and recognizing the patterns of it in my own life. 2025 will bring more reflections on this theme. If you aren’t yet subscribing, I hope you will join me in the discussion as we journey together. I wish you a restful and peaceful holiday season and end to this year. And I wish you the fulfillment of many hopes in 2025 and the years to come.
I begin to be aware of the darkness today. Light has been steadily diminishing for nearly six months, but today as I leave work I am overtaken by the cold and dusk. I am weariness and discouragement, bundled in a puffy coat and cheerful scarf.
Sunlight during business hours brings me hope and steals my focus, causes daydreams of after-work activities best enjoyed in the light and warmth of other months. But those plans fade in the harsh reality of LED headlights in the after-five-o’clock drudge. Maybe I’ll hibernate instead.
In my neighborhood, the gathered darkness retreats from streetlights and porch lights. Trees and windows and railings and rooflines glow in white and multi-colors. They are steady and flashing and dim and bright and they are all light. Within the walls of my home, there is the cheer of my little Christmas tree, with ornaments that tell 100 years of family history; there is lamplight, screen light, laughter, safety, togetherness.
Minute by minute we lose light until one day minute by minute we gain it again. Year after year it’s the same, but some years feel more like December 15 than others. The loss is pronounced. I notice the lack and diminishment in these years. There isn’t enough of anything to go around. Certainly not enough of me, my time, my energy. The burdens and pressures shine directly on me like those LED headlights, and I’d put my hand in front of my eyes to shield them, but I’m already carrying so many things. These years, like the shortening days of December, could make me think darkness and cold are the only reality.
But the cycle of the seasons in each year reminds me that light returns. Darkness lingers but does not hold me. Brightness and leaves and blooms will return in time. And just as some years feel like December 15, some also feel like June with its warmth, light, ease, and possibilities.
We can’t keep ourselves in the season of our choosing. We must move through them as we live our lives, acknowledging there will be times of scarcity, and times of abundance. Times when we need to turn our attentions inward, to tend to our hearts and minds, and to our own loved ones. And times when we have the excess to help lift burdens of those struggling beside us. Participating in community is strange and beautiful. While my neighbor may be living in December, I’m experiencing June.
December and June each have their own kinds of light, one cold and insistent, one exuberant. Like the electrical bulbs strung around my neighborhood with varied intensity and hues, both types of light are real. Both offer glimpses of things we might not see otherwise. Bringing, in their own ways, what light always brings: hope.
Hope leads us forward, like the steady beam of a flashlight on an unfamiliar path. Glows like the porch light of home at the end of a long journey. Blazes like the sun at the peak of a summer’s day. Hope pierces the darkness like a far-off star on a cold December night.
As we look forward to the light and hope that never ends, may we look for ways to offer hope to each other, whatever season we may be in. To remind each other of the beauties we’ve seen as we’ve wandered in waning light. To shine our own light all around to offer that marvelous gift of hope. And to wait in expectation for the light to return because it always does.