If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you may know that today, December 21, is the winter solstice.  The "shortest" day of the year.  Or as Robert Frost puts it in his "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "the darkest night."  Yet although it may not seem like it, the winter solstice is actually the grand turning point of the year, the day and night in which time and light begin to grow.  It's the end of the light, yes, but its genesis, too.  We lose, yet we win, moving, ever so slightly, toward the greater light to come.

     While most of us continue to see some daylight, some of us, those of us who live well beyond the Arctic Circle, see only darkness.  But do they?  Although darkness seems to reign, a continual black gloom, the light is never really gone.  Our hearts remain engaged with existence, illuminating us, disclosing the world.  We still see.
     I love the winter.  I love how it masks and shrouds, I love how it engages reflection, I love how it sends us into places we would not otherwise go.  And I love how winter helps us "see" what sight can be.  As we trek through the darker days and hours, we come to understand that light is not what we think it is, illumination and no more.  Light is rather the underlying rhythm of all creation, a continuity of divine favor, a favor that speaks in gloom as well as joy, a favor that underscores the fact of a purposeful planet:  the light of the world."

      

     Step into the darkness, treasure the light.  Enjoy the marvel of a remarkably consistent personal creation.