Lead kindly light, amidst th’encircling gloom;
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene, one step enough for me.
~John Henry Newman

This morning I listened to these lyrics sung by three Irish singers whose voices blend so beautifully the music pulls at your heart strings. The words of this hymn written in 1833 fit the mood in which I walked and they gave me comfort on the path. Though the darkness had lifted from the night before, I felt as if I was still walking in a shadow that was difficult to shake. And so I walk in it, tried to learn from its wisdom.

Yesterday had handed me a few lumps of coal. Their imaginary black, shining roughness was still tucked neatly into my pockets much as the real ones of my childhood could often be found in hidden places after a visit to one of the many Southern Ohio coal tipples. Their darkness was weighing me down and I was trying to make sense of them. A phone call with a frightened young mother dug into my hip. Was I able to say any thing at all that was helpful? Another call in which I learned of ways I have disappointed pressed into my thigh. Several colleagues were struggling with other challenges and I felt the weight of their fatigue. Another jab.

It is often easy to hold up the darkness as holy, as we are in our faith community in these Advent days, when it is simply a metaphor. As if metaphors were ever simple! But when real darkness threatens as it does those who struggle with depression and the affect of little sunlight, this holy darkness it is something that has a life of its own. How to hold those places where people are flailing in the darkness that threatens to overwhelm?

Shuffling along as I did this morning with this two hundred year old hymn as my soundtrack, I thought of all the kindly lights that walk with us. These words do not offer laser light shows but a simple, soft illumination that leads us when we feel far from what we know to be home. It is a walking meditation of sorts, isn’t it? One foot in front of the other. Step. Pause. Step. Always held in a soft glow that only illuminates just enough of the path to keep us firmly anchored in the present moment. Which, after all, is all we can be sure of. Who holds this light for you? How are your feet being led on the path?

As I walked, Light kindly leading me, I offered prayers of peace for the young mother and those I am blessed to share with in ministry. I also asked for greater humility to recognize that disappointments are a part of living and I would need to find a way to make it right. Soft, kinder light often is the path partner of the humble walker.

As a child I loved to go to my grandmother’s house and have sleepovers. In her tiny living room stood a brown stove that heated the main floor. Beside the stove was a card table with a jigsaw puzzle always ready to entertain. Sitting by this stove, fueled by coal, we ate homemade peanut butter fudge and brought tiny pieces together to make a larger picture. That coal brought both warmth and light. And comfort. And a sense of knowing where I belonged, that I was loved and that darkness gives birth to light. I could not have imagined nor seen the life that would unfold for me.

It is a distant scene of memory led by a kindly light to illuminate a new day. One step at a time.