We have just passed the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. In nature, the longest night is exactly that - the longest stretch of time between sunset and sunrise. Many cultures celebrate the winter solstice and gather around symbols of light and life, and cling to the solstice as the reminder that even the darkest days will get lighter and the longest nights will get shorter.

Certainly, the same symbolism is true for Christians. John 1 says that "in [Christ] is life, and the life is the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." As we cross the longest night into longer and longer days, we look at the dark and broken places in our lives with hope that God's light will still enter into our darkness and illumine us with life.

"Windsor - misty night" by tourist_on_earth, on Flickr

The Ledge of Light
by Jessica Powers

I have climbed up out of a narrow darkness
on to a ledge of light.
I am of God; I was not made for night.

Here there is room to lift my arms and sing.
Oh, God is vast! With Him all space can come
to hole or corner or cubiculum.

Though once I prayed, “O closed Hand holding me…”
I know Love, not a vise. I see aright,
set free in morning on this ledge of light.

Yet not all truth I see. Since I am not
yet one of God’s partakers,
I visualize Him now: a thousand acres.

God is a thousand acres to me now
of high sweet-smelling April and the flow
of windy light across a wide plateau.

Ah, but when love grows unitive I know
joy will upsoar, my heart sing, far more free,
having come home to God’s infinity.

from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, edited by Regina Siegfried and Robert F. Morneau. Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1989.