Light and Darkness

It’s been nearly a month since I posted on this blog--but what a month it’s been.  My focus in the last 3 weeks has been spending time with family, something my blood counts and treatment schedule have (almost miraculously) allowed.  Since December 19, Elise and/or I have made two trips to Lexington, two trips to Indiana (one by way of Kentucky), four trips to Charleston, and an uncalculated number of trips to Wal-Mart.  In the process, we’ve managed to exchange Christmas gifts, eat multiple Christmas dinners, undergo various pre-transplant tests, and finish outfitting the home where we’ll be staying in Charleston during the transplant process.

As we have been busy with all of this travel and preparation, our journeys have been along pathways festooned with Christmas light.  Like the shepherds and magi before us, we have finished our Christmas journeys with a more profound sense of the miracle--that in the darkest season of the year (and sometimes of our lives), God offers light.  Light to lead us.  Light to guide us.  Light to save us.  

This season, I have witnessed  the light shining in the darkness through
meals lovingly prepared
homes and beds generously shared
the generous gifts of others
the gentle attention of mothers
the patient abiding of a congregation
the joyful rhythms of conversation
the miracle of old stories heard fresh
the mystery of God become flesh

With the holy-days of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany fading in our (well-traveled) rear-view mirror, may we receive the light we need for the ground we have yet to cover.  I am now just over two weeks from the transplant that will, God willing, make another person’s strong immune system a functioning replacement of mine.  I’m told there could be dark days in the journey.  Since I’m no poet, I close with the words of someone who is.  In fact, it is these words which are part of the most precious gift I got this Christmas.  The Country of Marriage, a poem by Wendell Berry which is excerpted below, was set to music by my wonderful wife as a Christmas gift to me this year. You can listen to her musical version in the box to the right.  

In it is the lesson of the holy days, which is that darkness holds blessings that await the light’s return:

Sometimes our life reminds me of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing and in that opening a house, an orchard and garden, comfortable shades, and flowers red and yellow in the sun, a pattern made in the light for the light to return to. The forest is mostly dark, its ways to be made anew day after day, the dark richer than the light and more blessed, provided we stay brave enough to keep on going in.

To read the entire poem, click here.