Ripples on the River – December 2019

I love Christmas lights—as long as they’re shining after Thanksgiving.

When I thought about the Advent season leading us into the birth of our new Northern Lights Region, I remembered a lesson about the need for darkness to see the light.

The speaker on “Creation Spirituality” put us into small groups at the 1987 Turner Lectures in Yakima. I was serving the Creston Christian Church in rural Eastern Washington at the time. Roger Davidson brought his perspective from serving the First Christian Church of Tacoma in urban Western Washington. When I talked about the brilliance of the night sky in our small town, Roger replied that light pollution kept him from seeing the stars in Tacoma.

I think of that conversation sometimes when I go outside our home on winter nights. We live in the country and it didn’t take us long to remove the outside security light. It can feel pretty dark at times when we come home—but when I go into the yard on a clear night, the stars are magnificent.
We look for light in our seasons of darkness. Advent reminds us of the truth in star-gazing: The darker the night, the easier we can see the lights of the heavens.

Let’s give thanks for times of darkness, because sometimes that’s what it takes for us to see God’s Light in our world.
In Christ, Ron