a light in the darkness

[katster]

Candles at church, by me

I’ve been doing a lot of wheelspinning lately as I try to figure out something. I haven’t figured out much in the way of conclusions because I haven’t had the time to pursue threads all the way out, but there is one thing that comes to mind.

Ignore all that ‘must co-opt pagan holiday’ stuff that caused the birth of Jesus to be moved to the bleak midwinter as opposed to the more logical late spring that all the trappings of the story hint at, and look at it from a different perspective. As a storyteller, there is no better time of the year. The world is at its darkest in the days around the solstice, so much so that we light our homes with blazing electric lights to chase the darkness away. And metaphorically, isn’t that what the Christchild story is? Bringing light to a dark world?

The story demands the change.

Anyway, that’s one of the threads I’m still trying to follow to its conclusion; I may or may not continue to blog about it.

But for those who celebrate it, Merry Christmas! And if you don’t, may you have a good day today as well.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[lirazel.livejournal.com]

The problem with living on a swiftly tilting planet, though, is that while the Northern Hemisphere world is walking down the darkness towards the morning, the Southern side has reached the peak of light and is trending towards darkness.

And the other problem with all this God is Light stuff is that it leaves out the holy darkness, the deep underground stuff that uphold all things -- things we call good, and things we call evil. Living with a blind person has made me think about darkness quite a bit. I can no longer reject it as even symbolic of evil. It's another place where God is found.

But as C.S. Lewis and a few others have noted, we can have all sorts of different images in our minds for God. None of them is God; all of them point the way. We have to make sure not to confuse image with reality, though.