Looking for the Light

 Last week, I was looking for the light in many different places.  On the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, I noticed the sunset was at 4:53 pm here.  That day we had nearly 14 hours of darkness.  On our mid afternoon walk, I noticed the long shadows on the streets midday.  It was hard to find sunshine to walk in.  The old poinsettia from two years ago is putting out tiny red bracts (it’s a short day plant that only does this when the night is longer than the day).  All signs.  Photos from E. Lansing from that evening show Erik and Sonja putting out luminarias in front of our house and theirs.  Erika told me the whole street was lined with them.  She said people put out more Christmas decorations than ever there and more people put out luminarias.  It must have been really beautiful.  I think everyone wanted to brighten up the world.  

Coming back from our walk on the solstice, a neighbor’s daughter went by in her old red pickup and stopped to chat, telling us she’s come up to the hills to see the Convergence of the planets.  So when we got home, Bob took out his spotting scope and his longest telephoto lens and we starting looking in the western sky for the convergence of Jupiter and Saturn.  They were visible to the naked eye as a very bright spot above San Francisco.  That night the clouds blocked our view, but the next night was clear and we saw them well.  With the spotting scope I could see 4 moons of the bigger brighter Jupiter and Saturn as elliptical so I could imagine the rings.  It was exciting because this convergence only happens every 800 years.  We were out there looking for the light!  The photo is one from NASA that Bob said stacked lots of photo images together to give such a clear image.  

The sermon I’d been writing for the worship service at the San Rafael church on Dec. 27 is called “Looking for the Light.”  The premise was that it is nice we celebrate baby Jesus, the light of the world, being born 2000 years ago, but it only matter if that light is born in our hearts.  So I rattled on about ways we find the light or love or Christ, whatever you call it, in each other.  This year, it is so quiet around our house that with the sermon I’ve had time to think about the real meaning of Christmas.  I think it is more important than ever to keep my eyes on the prize, to keep looking for the light!!!!