Season of Darkness, Beings of Light

Like many, I feel ambivalent about the end of Daylight Saving Time every fall. I relish the opportunity to get a little more sleep but lament the lengthening darkness. But over the years, I’ve developed an appreciation for the darkness, mostly because it’s given me a renewed appreciation for the light. This is especially true as the year’s shortest days approach and the days are counting down to Christmas.

Getting ready for Christmas can mean several things. There’s lots of fun stuff: Shopping and wrapping gifts; mailing paper holiday cards or sending electronic greetings; preparing favorite holiday recipes; and making plans to visit friends and family. Somewhere in there, for many of us, is a task that is not as much fun: untangling and draping lights on Christmas trees and around garlands on stair railings inside the house and on fences, porches, gates, and trees outside.

A few years ago, we lived in a house with a tree out front that we would adorn with strings of white lights woven through the bare branches and reaching down the trunk. This endeavor required coats, hats, gloves, a ladder, and lots of patience. I would stand outside and hand the lights to my husband and help drape the low branches while he stood on the ladder and draped the high ones. Then I returned to the warmth of the house to make hot chocolate for us while he stayed outside and did the real work.

As the days got shorter and shorter, I welcomed the darkness so I could turn on those lights and look up and down my street to see the lights on the other houses. Some were spare and understated like mine and others were over the top—busy and colorful. I looked forward to the sun setting every day just so I could appreciate all the lights. I even felt a little disappointed in January when it was time to take the lights down, even knowing the coming days would be growing noticeably longer.

I’m carrying this perspective with me these days. More and more, the world feels dark to me. Bad news seems to outweigh the good. Impatience and rudeness are crowding out kindness and decency. It feels like too many are talking and not enough are listening.

Seeing—and Shining—the Light

Comparing short days and Christmas lights to our divisions and discord may not seem especially apt. After all, Christmas is a happy time and so many of the world’s circumstances feel anything but happy for many of us.

The world’s conditions, whether we call them good or bad, are always changing. The truth of God as absolute goodness and perfect love is changeless. And that divine goodness and love is within each of us. Our call is to share our divine qualities as only we can, to shine our light into the darkness.

No matter what may divide us, one thing unites everyone and it’s bigger than everything else: We are spiritual beings, individuations of the Divine. It is this knowledge that will help us keep our focus where it should be: not on the darkness that surrounds us, but on the light that is within us.

The more we are attuned to our inner light, the more comfortable we’ll be shining it brightly by being authentic, compassionate, and understanding. The better we’ll be able to appreciate how others around us are shining their lights as only they can. We will discover anew what binds and connects us, so the darkness of division and disagreement will not engulf us.

I invite you to lean into this truth as the days get shorter leading to Christmas. Accept the darkness will be with us for a while, but shine brightly and keep turning toward the light you find in others.

Merry Christmas to all. And to all a good—and bright—night.

This was a Daily Word editor’s letter. To subscribe to Daily Word, please visit https://shop.unityonline.org/subscribe.