Among my favorite things about the Christmas season are the lights – hung on trees, fastened on light posts, strung on banisters and rooftops and storefronts. There is a quiet elegance to tiny bulbs illuminating chilly evenings and grey, winter landscapes. Anticipation fills the stillness, and as I drive home a gentle comfort whispers that perhaps the darkness is not quite so deep as usual tonight.
Even such small lights can bring hope. But the joy they proclaim comes and goes so quickly – soon Christmas will be over, we will grow tired of the decorations, and the lights will be put back in boxes where they will dance themselves into preposterous knots and inconceivable tangles over the next eleven months.