Relax Into Radiance

 So Soon

 An hour after we light the tree, it’s hard to remember how the room used to be — so soon we relax into radiance. It makes me want to whisper luminous words, string kindnesses together like twinkling garlands, hang them wherever it’s dim. If we all spoke in light, imagine that glow — how quickly even the darkest spaces inside and between us could become welcoming, warm, even, imagine, incandescent.

              Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer


While the proem above’s point of reference is a tree lighting, I am wondering, as I sit here on Christmas eve in a darkness interrupted by a radiance human made and divine, whether it is also a metaphor for the birth of light and love. After a long Advent sprinkled with tiny points of light in a darkness of violence and deceit, fear and random cruelty, “it’s hard to remember how the room used to be.” From wilderness to cave we emerge witnesses to a magnanimous glow -“so soon we relax into radiance.” 


Relax into radiance…


We don’t let go of our cultivated vigilance; we relax because it has become part of us and brought us to this space where hope, peace, joy, and love are not fully grown but are enough to cause us to continue…with less fear…with more grace…with the radiance of the blessed assurance.


We have been called to the manger not only to witness this enlightening but to find our rest in It. Rest and remain a while.

Sleep in heavenly peace.


Merry Christmas!

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