Darkness into Light

I have so many thoughts pinging around at the moment that I'm not sure where to begin. First, I suppose, an update is in order.

This better not happen while I'm there.

1. In two days, I'm flying to The Land Where I Was Birthed for a week of holiday love and awesomeness with my family and dear friends. Thankfully, I have a non-stop flight. And I have a winter coat to borrow for the week. Spaz will enjoy my roommate and Elliott the Cat for company during my absence, but then she'll be without a human being overnight for the first time in her life between my roommate's departure for her holiday and my return. Our neighbor will come over to feed and play with the cats, but I anticipate a very grumpy Spaz when I return.

Funny how everything comes back to the cat.

Anyway.

2. Fell off a chair while hanging a lovely cedar Christmas garland a couple weeks ago. As has been pointed out to me - a dangerous holiday. I twisted my "good" knee rather badly, but it seems to be healing and no permanent damage has been done. I hope. Leave it to me, I swear.

3. Aside from #2, my first semester at Ithaca College Los Angeles ended well and relatively stress-free.

4. I started attending an amazing church in NoHo - St. Charles Borromeo. I can't say enough about this parish. I love going to Mass there on Fridays and Sundays. Once the holidays are over, I'm going to look into what ministry I can participate in.

5. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet (CSJs) are affirming me in my vocation journey with them, but I have debt to pay off before candidacy can become a serious possibility. In the meantime, my walk with God continues to deepen. I can't say enough about this process. And it is a process. I am incredibly blessed in ways I can't begin to count. I have become, am becoming, remembering and discovering who I really am, was born to be. I have never been more at peace and truly alive in my entire life. Blessed be God!

So much for the update. Now the juicy bits.

Ahhh, juicy bits.

Menorah

The Christmas and Hanukkah seasons are upon us - both festivals of light - with the Winter Solstice around the corner (the return of the light in the form of longer days and shorter nights). Interesting how all that coincides...

Advent Wreath

Lately the topic of darkness and light has presented itself to me from a variety of sources and angles. God working in my life yet again!

Fr. Richard Rohr writes about the co-existence of light and dark, good and evil, in the world, and that the work of the light is to make choices that acknowledge the darkness but do not capitulate to it. Choosing to respond to life and suffering with love (instead of the myriad of other options - fear, envy, selfishness, hatred, violence, etc.) will manifest throughout our reality in a continuation of the work Yeshua the Messiah and will make that path all the more attractive, thus emptying evil of whatever power it seems to hold in our lives, in our world. And these choices will begin to transform us as individuals and the world we co-create with each other and with God. The key here is that in every moment, there are choices. These are the choices - manifest light or give in to darkness.

Today I read a short but stirringly powerful article on this from outside the typical Christian framework.

Winter Solstice at Newgrange, Ireland

The mystery of darkness and divine light belongs to each of us and to the world. We are the world waiting in the darkness and we are the light waiting to be born. It is only too easy to see the darkness around us -- the forgetfulness of the sacred nature of creation, the destruction and desecration of our beautiful and suffering world. We should not avoid being aware of what we are doing to the world, but we need also to turn toward the light that is waiting within our own heart and the heart of the world. We need to hold this sacred light in our hearts and our life. We need to be the prayer for the world in this time of darkness.     -- Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/llewellyn-vaughanlee/a-prayer-at-the-winter-solstice_b_2273035.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

How perfect is that? And it neatly includes and wraps up two of my more serious posts here in the last few months on "staying in the moment" and "the culture of snark." Making the choice to stay in the sacredness of every moment, to turn toward the light that is waiting within our own hearts (which for me is the Holy Spirit), and making the choice not to play with that darkness and pretend that it's cool and it's hip and it makes us somehow more awesome than the Other because we can wield it in the form of language and attitude over another human being.

The goal of love and light is "diversity in unity" as St. Therese of Lisieux suggested. Unity. As One. The goal of darkness and evil is separation - separating us from each other, from our Divine Oneness.

Wishing everyone a holy season of Light - be it Hanukkah, Christmas, Solstice, or something else entirely - and a blessed time to turn within to the light in your own hearts.