Winter Solstice

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By Stacey Kohl

Darkness is a word we don’t often associate with the more positive aspects of life.

When we were children, it was easy to imagine the monster as it lurked in the darkened corner of our room or in the blackness of the night outside our windows. As adults, we may no longer live in fear of the monsters lurking under out beds, but we still fear the dark.

As adults we fear the hidden; we fear the unknown; we still fear the dark.

But is the dark truly something we should fear?

With today dawns the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. For those of us living in Connecticut, the sun will rise on this day at 7:11 a.m. and set scarcely over 9 hours later. As the sun dips below the horizon, we will be greeted by the longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice. Over 14 hours of darkness will surround us this night leaving us in much the same state as our ancestors were, seeking out places of light and warmth from the dark and the cold.

But for those brave enough to venture out this night, you may be greeted by a strange realization. Darkness, even the inky blackness of the Winter Solstice, is never truly dark at all. Christmas lights glow on house-fronts, candles burn in windows, streetlamps bathe corners in warm yellow light. And for those lucky enough to move farther out, away from the man-made lights of the cities, you may even be greeted by a greater gift—the lights of God. Stars more numerous than we could ever name, meteors streaking by in the guise of “shooting stars,” and the waning light of the moon as it chases the night across the sky.

These are the gifts of darkness. Darkness can create for us a place of rest, a place of stillness, a place of noticing. Without darkness’ soft and gentle enfolding, the glare of the day would be too much; too stark, too real. Without darkness, we would never know the light—both the bright light of day and the soft glow of stars at night.

And so, on this night of great and consuming darkness let us remember that we truly have nothing to fear from the darkness. After all, without darkness, there is no light.

Advent Calendar - Poem selected by Benjamin Straley

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Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf's fall.

One night when the November wind

has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth

wakes choking on the mould,

the soft shroud's folding.

He will come like frost.

One morning when the shrinking earth

opens on mist, to find itself

arrested in the net

of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.

One evening when the bursting red

December sun draws up the sheet

and penny-masks its eye to yield

the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,

will come like crying in the night,

like blood, like breaking,

as the earth writhes to toss him free.

He will come like child.

© 2002 Rowan Williams. The Poems of Rowan Williams. The Perpetua Press, Oxford, U.K.

Music: The Lamb, by John Tavener (1944-2013). Text: William Blake (1757-1827)

I wait

By Stacey Kohl
 

I wait.

As the days grow shorter and the nights longer, I wait.

As the wind blows more sharply and the world around me grows colder, I wait.

As the very earth seems to sink low into the darkness of winter, I wait.

I wait.  

I wait because I know someone is coming—because I know someone has already come.

I wait because I know this someone will take the darkness and make it light

Will take the cold and make it warmth

Will take the weight of so much pain,

so much anger,

so much loneliness,

so much hate,

and lift it away.

I wait because the one who is coming—the one who has already come—is love itself.

And love is always worth waiting for.