On the Sixth Day of Christmas

I sat in my friend's church up in the Big City this morning and listened to a fabulous sermon preached by the deacon who shares her pulpit. A year ago today I preached on this same text. It's not like I've never heard John 1:1-18 before. But this morning, that was kind of what it felt like. He made the message so compelling, so....newly important. He talked about light... Jesus....this Light that the the darkness could not comprehend....he used the analogy of a room with light in it, and a door is opened, the light spills out into the dark, but the light does not diminish in the lighted room. He quoted Joan Chittester, how we are all capable of being light-bearers, but we must be willing to be alight. But the thing that hit me....just knocked me out....was that part about the darkness not being able to comprehend, overcome....the light. That what we are promised is not that there will not be darkness, we all know there is, but that because of Jesus, because of the Incarnation that darkness will never again overcome the light completely. It was new good news this morning for some reason. And it made me pretty fizzy!



It was that kind of a day. I've lived out here for five years and change now. There have been a lot of trips back and forth to the Big City three hours from here where I spent twenty five years of my life, and where I really had planned to spend the rest of my life before things started getting really interesting a while back! In all those trips, as I was making the return leg after a visit back I can remember thinking many times that I'd be glad to be off the road, or back here, but today, I found myself feeling a longing to be....home. It was a whole new feeling. I like it, and it continued the fizz as well.



The really amazing thing about all of these fizz-inducing little gifts is that I could easily have missed them. On Friday I had managed to get my feelings hurt pretty badly. I had done that thing that is most often dangerous to do....Taken Something Personally. Dear One had a made a decision that I did not agree with (and did NOT have control over!) and decided that we needed to drive separately for a whole host of reasons that really did make sense. At the time however, I did not think so, and felt all abandoned and upset, so in response I got a wee bit snitty and I was just going to show everybody and punish the world by depriving them all of my company and just stay home and sulk! Fortunately, I had time to pray and sleep on it ( it's a good thing that Compline mentions that business about confessing our sins to God...) and reconsidered.


It was a good choice. The drive time was good solitude, the time with our friends was fun. And I would not have lived well with myself had I gone with the other plan!