Dear Ones,
As we move into December, into the darkness, we find ourselves in spaces of tension.
There’s the excitement and hubbub of all the things that happen around the holidays, combined with commercial and consumerist messages that bombard us.
There’s the tension and anxiety that come with the end of the year, work deadlines and financial demands, and, for some of us, with gathering with family and friends, the invitations or lack of invitations to holiday and year-end festivities. And this year tension is higher for many because of events in the country and world, which are amping up anxiety more.
And there’s the quietness, lovely stillness, and sluggishness that come with lengthening nights and short days.
We’re going into the darkness, and as we go many faiths invite us into attentiveness to it or into anticipation of something coming.
We can feel all this as a tug-of-war, where we feel caught in the swirl of the season. And so this call to deepen and cultivate the gifts of the spirit is all the more valuable, as it is whenever we find ourselves in places that are in-between, in tension, changing, busy, anxious.
The holidays of light and darkness at this time of year invite us into wonder and patience. They do invite us to exuberance and delight, but to make it to the great celebration we need patience, hope, faith, love, courage, and the ability to cultivate joy in our daily lives, whether that celebration is for Jesus’ birth, Hanukhah, Solstice, Watch Night, or something else. These holy days invite us to anticipation, to reaffirm the power of the spirit and the value of religious community and spiritual life, to explore what a miracle is, and to celebrate freedom, justice, and community.
As we move into December, into the darkness, and our reflections on Awe, may we hold the pull of connection and the pull of quiet stillness in delicate and creative tension. May you, may we find ways of being together that help us deepen and connect even as we allow ourselves to be nourished by the quiet darkness. May we deepen in our relationship with awe as the darkness grows. May we find in the deep stillness what our spirits need, individually and as a congregation.
Love and Blessings,
Rev. Diana