Mystery and paradox have been on my mind as the days grow shorter and the darkness envelopes us. Mystery is a good place to land when considering life’s limitations. Paradox is helpful in understanding this season’s growing darkness and hopeful anticipation of what’s to come.

Perhaps we can embrace what we cannot see in a way that our eyes can be opened.

On a Winter Solstice’s Walk last Saturday afternoon with Beth Norcross of the Center for Spirituality in Nature, Candice and I stopped in the middle of a very busy holiday season to spend quiet time along the shores of the Potomac River. We wanted to honor this shortest day of the year and experience both the darkness and the light it offers. Beth used Jan Richardson’s poem A Blessing for Traveling in the Dark as the framework for our reflections.

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A Blessing for Traveling in the Dark

Go slow
if you can.
Slower.
More slowly still.
Friendly dark
or fearsome,
this is no place
to break your neck
by rushing,
by running,
by crashing into
what you cannot see.

Then again,
it is true:
different darks
have different tasks,
and if you
have arrived here unawares,
if you have come
in peril
or in pain,
this might be no place
you should dawdle.

I do not know
what these shadows
ask of you,
what they might hold
that means you good
or ill.
It is not for me
to reckon
whether you should linger
or you should leave.

But this is what
I can ask for you:
That in the darkness
there be a blessing.
that in the shadows
there be a welcome.
that in the night
you be encompassed
by the Love that knows
your name.

Jan Richardson

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Go slow, Richardson writes. Oliver Burkeman’s paradox of limitations suggests the more one tries to rush through our days and manage time with the goal of achieving a feeling of total control, the more stressful, empty, and frustrating life gets. But the more one confronts “the facts of finitude” instead—and works with them, rather than against them—the more meaningful and joyful life becomes.

A simple fact of finitude is that we are all wounded. Perhaps our wounds come from crashing into things we did not see. Or perhaps life crashed into us when we were unawares. We saw this in the trees along the Potomac, but we also saw how nature uses winter and darkness as a time of healing. Slowing down in the darkness and at fallow times to deal with our wounds ultimately helps us live in the light. It may be a miracle, just not the one we expected.

Seasons have their ebbs and flows, and Diana Butler Bass writes about the spiritual flow of the winter season. First, we are awaiting light in the darkness (Advent); then light overcomes darkness (Christmas); and finally we follow the light to its glorious source (Epiphany). The Christian story “moves from flickering candlelight to the light of the cradle, to seekers welcomed into the widening circle of light.”

When we are moving at a mindful speed where we can recognize these changes in light, we naturally want to talk about it. As Bass writes on a different holy day, “speaking is a kind of transfiguration. From creation through the New Testament, words transform worlds.” 

“Speaking is a reflection of that sacred attribute in us; it is an aspect of the image of God in humankind. We, too, can bless and announce. We name the world around us, gifting even the animals with the beauty of our words. We confront Pharaoh or Caesar. We tell of God’s faithfulness from generation to generation. We declare peace. We recite poetry and stories. We proclaim Good News. We pronounce mercy, forgiveness, and love. We share thanks.

But we often get it wrong. For, like other aspects of God’s image, our speech can be distorted.”

As we walked along the Potomac, we used words to describe our reflections. But we also walked and sat in silence, to see what the interplay of darkness and light could teach us.

If we slow down and live fully in the moment . . .

“Speech and silence—the right kind of speech and the right kind of silence at the right time—can transfigure the world.

And us.

“It is countercultural; this is the beginning of wisdom. It takes time to learn. It grows with practice.“

Take the time today—on Christmas Day and every day that follows—to slow down. Remember that “we are here to keep watch, not to keep.” Seek to live in life’s liminal spaces. Pay attention. Be astonished. Accept the facts of finitude in life and use that knowledge to be awed and amazed by the wonder around you. Hold on to love over hate.

On that first Christmas, no one was really sure what they were witnessing. But the stories of the parents, the shepherds, and the astronomers from the east suggest that they knew they were in the midst of a miracle.

“Watch. Listen. Wait. The miracle isn’t always what it seems at first.”

Happy Christmas to you and yours.

More to come . . .

DJB

Potomac River photo by Alex Reynolds on Unsplash