It is certain to be the longest night, tonight.  Let’s honor it, shall we?  Let’s sit in the darkness and feel the tensions.  They are so very present in our world.  They are so present you can hear them like howling wolves starved for meat and heat.  You can feel them vibrating on your skin like deep, bass notes stroked longingly and slowly over strings held taunt.  They pound in our hearts and minds.  They wake us in our sleeping and disturb the sweetest of dreams.  The sadnesses of our world cannot be ignored even in the midst of what is billed as the happiest time of the year.  We work hard to honor what is good.  (And how we must daily tend that which is balanced and healthy and happy.)  But let us not grow blind to the shallowness of our living that keeps us focused that which will never last or heal or bless.
 
It is a dark night in a dark time.  Christmas is as lost as we are.  We have forgotten the simple elegance of a starlit stable where humility and love and grace arrived unobtrusively.   Don’t you think God came to us that night in that way to show us how simply wholeness can be?  We need so much less than we think.  We need each other more than we know.  We need to stand together in the darkness and remind each other that we are not alone.  Jesus and Mary and Joseph were not alone in that stable, for we were all there with them.  We were there in the shadows hoping for what we could not name.  And we stand here still, here in the shadows questioning our pain and purpose in this life.
 
Sometimes, it is most worthy to journey outside and look into the face of the dark sky.  We need not think or pray or promise.  We need only to lift our faces toward the heavens and breathe.  We can stand present to all that has been, all that is, and all that will be and accept it as gift.  That’s what I imagine took place in that stable birth.  Like that sacred family, we can open our hearts and accept what is given with grace and with love.  (And yes, these words come to mind… If God is for us, who can be against us?)
 
Tonight, let us gather in the darkness and trust with one another that we are finding our way.  The darkness is teaching us exactly what we need to know to find the light.  Or maybe it is teaching us that the light is always within, simply waiting for us to recognize it. 
 

We aren’t living a dream.  We are living in the reality of troubled times full of people who are aching for some kind of truth that will set them free.  I’m not sure what else we can really expect.  There is such an emphasis in our culture on power and fame and wealth.  The vast population of US citizens are not going to be powerful or famous or wealthy, and yet that seems to be the perpetual goal.  How do we not realize that such a goal will inevitably lead to frustration and disappointment and sometimes, desperation?  And where does desperation lead?  Most often it leads to some sort of tragedy.
 
Oh, then there are the ‘rights’.  That’s the trendy topic right now.  Individual rights.  Each person is entitled, and if someone else’s entitlement steps on the next person’s rights, well there is going to be a big fuss.  “It’s my right,” is the current National Anthem. 
 
Additionally, there is the fear foundation that sends everyone running towards weaponry to keep their property and people safe.  That’s how you do it, right?  I mean, that’s how Hollywood says to do it.  That’s how our government says to do it.  Our tax dollars prove that.  We need to be the biggest, and baddest with the biggest, baddest gun to gain the respect and attention of the ‘bad guys.’  Is it working?  Really?  Is it working?  The evening news is not convincing me that we are on the path to greater security, reason, and happiness by way of the biggest and baddest mentality.  
 
Why aren’t we calling to task the promoters of lostness?  Why are we still spending our money to support the Hollywood glorification of that which makes us sick?  How can we be so ignorant to think that our love of killing isn’t the problem?  I don’t understand how we don’t understand.  Why are we allowing the undercurrent of negativity and destruction and fear to be so strong, and why aren’t we working more intentionally to dispel such?  I want to work harder to dispel such.
 
If you have a glass of water and you put a drop of blue food coloring into that water, and you stir the water around… you’ll have water that is blue.  But if you continue to pour in clean, clear water, the blue water will begin to spill out and eventually you’ll have a glass of water that is not blue.  Just because the water is troubled now, doesn’t mean that drop by drop we can’t change it.  It seems so overwhelming to believe that gentle, kind measures can right the wrong.  It feels like such a slow process when the bleeders are bleeding.  How in the world can prayer and courtesy and thoughtfulness and generosity and faithfulness to one another mend the mess we are in?
 
Go find out.  Do your own soulful searching.  Toss light onto your own shadows and tend them so they can heal.  Then, while you are at it, come alongside of someone else tending her own shadows, and let her know she is not alone.  Show up.  Show up with hope.  Show up with kindness toward the stranger.  Show up in tangible measures that demonstrate your prayers have legs and heart and hands.  Be about that which gives life, opens doors, and honors the tenderness of this existence.  Extend to others your open hand and see what you come home with.  It’s not the time to be afraid.  It’s the time to be of great courage and great wisdom.  It’s time to make the goodness known, visible, palpable, and abundant.  John McCutcheon sings, “Step by step the longest march can be won, can be won.  Many stones can form an arch singly done, singly done.  And by union what we will, can be accomplished still.  Drops of water turn a mill, singly done, singly done.”

Two weeks ago, I quit a job that zapped my soul.  Since then, my doctor notes how my blood pressure is down and the weight is coming off, too.  Literally, the weight is coming off… off of my shoulders and my heart.  I sleep again, and wake up singing.  I am very thankful for this reprieve.  As Voltaire stated, “I have decided to be happy because it is good for my health.” 
 
I’m not sure I know where I’m going or how I’m going to get there, but I am familiar with unfamiliar territory.  As I said to a friend yesterday, I feel like I’m in this little bumpity wagon and God is taking me for a ride.  “Hey, look,” we say together as we pass the barren trees growing ripe to welcome winter snows.  “Did you notice the goldfinch are brown now?”  “Can you begin to feel the calm seeping into your being?”  “It’s going to be okay.  I’m with you.  I’m leading you.”  My friend reminded me that there is coming a time when I’ll be asked to get out of the wagon, and hey, I might be dumped out… but for now, there is respite for my being.  There is the promise that I’m not alone, that the creation I am is enough, and that now is the time to be present to what is.  God is mending me and returning me to delight.
 
Sunday, I was sitting in the quiet of worship.  Sometimes, as a way of growing still, I study the stained glass windows.  They are so beautiful in this little Meeting House that I love.  Most often my eyes rest easy on the window of Jesus and the sheep.  He holds one close, and I often think of myself as that little lamb with my heart beating close to Christ’s.  Such comfort!  But on this Sunday, I was facing a different direction and studying a different window.  I love how colors bleed into one another, how light changes the intensity of the colors, and how someone was so thoughtful and talented to create such artistry.  Then, I noticed that there were cracks in the glass.  It reminded me of once visiting a museum with a display of Tiffany windows and how there were cracks in those windows as well.  And yet, the windows were still in one piece… true also with the windows I was currently viewing. 
 
There was a time when I worked in stained glass, and I learned then that so long as a crack goes from one solder seam to the next, with care, it will most often stay in place.  Isn’t that amazing?  And isn’t that like us?  We sat together Sunday in a prayerful circle holding together the bruises and cracks from our own lives and the lives of those we love.  We prayed for all that is torn in our world, for all of those so wounded that they wound others.  And we moved in closely, and we bound together like solder lines.  Our presence and our prayers hold our hurting brothers and sisters in comfort and beauty.
 
It is now the season of Advent.  It has arrived just in the nick of time.  How we need to allow reflection, and to grow still as we wait for what is to come.  Maybe we shouldn’t be asking, “What do you want for Christmas?”  Maybe we should be asking, “What do you want for Advent?”  Maybe it’s not about hustle and bustle and frantic decorating and purchasing.  Maybe we all need to get into God’s wagon and go for a quiet ride.  Maybe we need to ride side by side, listening to the sound of snow falling and watching our puffs of breath make cloud wishes that keep us warm.  Maybe we can be the solder for each other that evokes peace and healing as we find our way towards Christmas.  Hold someone close to your heart or in your heart, and then hold yourself close to the heart of Christ.  This is what we can do.  This is what we can give.  May the coming days grant us such peace.