Widening Light?

An Epiphany of shadows and stars

We’re in Epiphany, the season in the Christian year of widening light. The light rises and spreads; the light reveals and surprises; the light beckons and guides.

God-with-Us was born and escaped Herod’s wrath. The Child of Light has come into the world. The Magi are heading home by another road. The route is unfamiliar, and yet, the Light grows as they journey. This is the time of stars, the millions of suns that dot the obsidian skies.

Two Sundays ago, we sang “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light” in my little church. Its words have always been my Epiphany anthem:

I want to walk as a child of the light
I want to follow Jesus
God sent the stars to give light to the world
The star of my life is Jesus.

In Him, there is no darkness at all
The night and the day are both alike…

No darkness? Really? Hello? Yesterday, here in the United States, it felt as if a curtain fell on democracy. I woke uneasy on this bitter cold morning. This passage from A Wrinkle in Time rattled around in my brain:

Meg looked. The dark shadow was still there. It had not lessened or dispersed with the coming of night. And where the shadow was, the stars were not visible.

What could there be about a shadow that was so terrible that she knew that there had never been before or ever would be again, anything that would chill her with a fear that was beyond shuddering, beyond crying or screaming, beyond the possibility of comfort?

The conjunction of Epiphany — the season of light — with this funerary political moment — the season of MAGA — is a profound, disorienting spiritual tension. My own soul is straining between the revelatory brilliance of God’s epiphany with the brutal roll-out of the authoritarian agenda. Dazzled by grace; despairing from evil.

Where the shadow was, the stars were not visible.

I need to keep looking to the stars, somehow beyond the shadow. Not in denial, but to remember that even when the inky shroud is there, the light still is. I need to draw strength from Epiphany.

I’ll be sharing bits of poetry and quotes as we go through the next few weeks in short, more frequent pieces. I can’t promise an email every day. But don’t be surprised to get these little posts reminding you of light and goodness more often than usual. This is not intended as empty comfort. I need to see the stars more clearly and not just stare at that terrible shadow.

I’m reminding myself of the spiritual beauty and power of Epiphany. This season of the alternative year, the Christian spiritual year, holds treasures and wisdom for this moment. I figured if I needed to be reminded, you might need to be as well.

Gratefully,
Diana

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Blessing for the Light
David Whyte

I thank you, light, again,
for helping me to find
the outline of my daughter’s face,
I thank you light, for the subtle way
your merest touch gives shape
to such things I could
only learn to love
through your delicate instruction,
and I thank you, this morning
waking again,
most intimately and secretly
for your visible invisibility,
the way you make me look
at the face of the world
so that everything, becomes
an eye to everything else
and so that strangely,
I also see myself being seen,
so that I can be born again
in that sight, so that
I can have this one other way
along with every other way,
to know that I am here.

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Courtesy of Getty Images

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“Itt iss Eevill…"
"What is going to happen?"
"Wee wwill cconnttinnue tto ffightt!"…
"And we’re not alone, you know, children," came Mrs.Whatsit, the comforter. "…some of the best fighters have come from your own planet…"
"Who have our fighters been?" Calvin asked.
"Oh, you must know them, dear," Mrs.Whatsit said. Mrs.Who’s spectacles shone out at them triumphantly.
"And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

― Madeleine L'Engle, from “A Wrinkle in Time”

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You can find “Blessing for the Light” on David Whyte’s Facebook page. Follow him. Buy his books. Sign up for his Substack (he has great free content as well as paid).

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