Today is a special, sacred space and time. it is the Winter Solstice, which has been considered sacred in many cultures for millennia. It is a sacred space because it is a threshold -- a place between. Today is the shortest day of the year, and the longest night. Beginning tomorrow, the days will lengthen. More light will shine. Today marks the change.
Historically, the Winter Solstice probably had more to do with making Christmas December 25th than some factual record that it was the date of Jesus' birth. It's appropriate, right? It reflects our experience that with Jesus light has come into the world. And that light touches all the dark places in our lives, in our world, with grace.
A friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to an article on Newgrange in Ireland, a prehistoric site made so that at sunrise of the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, a a beam of sunlight illuminates the floor of the inner chamber.
http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/The-magic-of-the-tombs-at-Newgrange-on-the-winter-solstice-184329441.html
How evocative this is of how this day is a threshold, sacred, where the light reaches out to the darkness, and illuminates and blesses the shadowed corners of our lives, the dark spaces inside us, as it illuminates the sacred space of this chamber. And I am struck that the light of this day doesn't make this inner chamber sacred, it is already sacred, but with the light that sacred space can be seen and experienced. And so it is with us.
May God's light touch and bless the dark corners in your life, this Winter Solstice and in the lengthening days that follow.
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