We call today the shortest day of the year. But anyone who knows how to keep time knows that all we mean by this is, the light is going to run for cover faster today than it does on any other day.
We still get the same blessed 24 hours— no fewer and no more. It will simply be that a few more hands of the clock will be spent in darkness than in light.
And here's the thing, we can't do a thing to change this (unless we're going to drive west all the time). It's not like we can go to the store to exchange some of the extra darkness for extra light.
But who would want to do that anyway?
Don't we know that without the darkness there is no light? There is no waiting for the stars to come out at night. And O how brilliant are the stars! There is no sun rising over the blackness of the sea. There is no possibility to learn to trust in what can only be felt. And there is no hope of tomorrow, when the light will start to creep back into the day a couple minutes more at a time.
Until one day we will reach the longest day of the year and, looking back, we'll say, Look how far we came together. Let's do it all over again.
I'm the one on the left. That's my favorite part on the right. I'm an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ. I work as Minister to a parish community in Cumberland, RI. That I could also see myself as a farmer, a cowboy, or Thoreau sitting pond-side at Walden is probably not insignificant. I don't blog about anything in particular, but everything I blog about is particularly important to me. That it may be to you as well is good enough for me.
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