It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness…

These are candle lighting days and nights. Darkness comes in late afternoon and lingers till the coffee is cold and the breakfast consumed. It is Advent and each Sunday we light one more candle to affirm that, though the people may walk in darkness, a light is emerging. It is balm on these now cold, snow covered times.

Recently at a women’s retreat I attended, one young mother told of how her family lights a candle at night and does bedtime stories in the light of candles. I have thought of that often over these last days. The warmth and ritual of it. The beauty of light streaming on the faces of mother and child. (I mean, doesn’t everyone look lovely in candlelight?) Surely this is something this wee one will carry within for a very long time…may even repeat when they have children of their own. 

Every morning while the coffee is brewing I light a candle to begin my morning. Its light means much…the day is beginning…the darkness will recede…the Spirit of All Light is present…a connection with ancestors who gathered around fire…a recognition of the beauty and power of that fire. And so, the morning begins. Whatever happens that day it began in the flicker of hopeful light.

In Advent waiting we are reminded of the longing that rests at our very core. We retell the story of a world filled with injustice and those who traveled to be named, to be counted, to give birth in humility and peace surrounded by strangers who offered sanctuary. It doesn’t take long for the realization that this story is still played out, is being played out, in our world, in our country, in our city, in our neighborhoods. The waiting and longing still stir and our hearts are still hungry. 

And so we light a candle…or many candles…to remind us that one light added to another, as the Advent candles teach, bring greater light and lead us toward some better, brighter place of hope and wholeness, a place where love leads the way. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” spoke Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

In the Twin Cities area, I am witnessing human candles standing up and shedding light on the dark path that been shed over our Somali neighbors and others who are being targeted by hate and injustice. With voice and body and action, people are saying “A Light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.” 

The Advent waiting continues. The expectation quivers within. The hope remains bathed in the light of each of our candles…those with wicks and hands and feet and hearts hungry for a time when Love leads the way.