大象传媒

Good morning.听 This is the season of short days and long nights. Our northern hemisphere is tilted at its furthest away from the sun and this is the point in the year when the darkness gets as close as it can to swallowing up the light of day. From getting up in the morning to returning home from work or school, we are engulfed by the gloom which, at this time of the year, claims two thirds of every waking day.

It鈥檚 no wonder that when people have wanted to describe feelings of despair or the experience of devastation, again and again in their search for a suitable way to describe the state they鈥檙e in, they鈥檝e turned to the all-enveloping characteristics of darkness. Mystical writers faced with a deep inner emptiness and raking uncertainty often referred to 鈥渢he dark night of the soul.鈥� At the other end of the spectrum, critics of religion have suggested that religious faith is a simple matter of whistling in the dark to keep one鈥檚 spirits up. The night is portrayed as a fearful time full of possible harm where faith becomes little more than a good luck charm.

Believers are quick to recognise the way something of the night can endanger their spiritual journey. The season we鈥檙e in, the season of Advent, is all about finding a way to navigate the darkness of despair when hope seems lost. The Psalmist waits patiently for God and clings to the hope of a new dawn more than watchmen waiting for the morning. Christians long once more for the light that shines in the darkness, a light that the darkness will always fail to overcome.听

In darkest night we pray dear Lord; kindle the light that never goes away. That never goes away. Amen.

听