darkness – Carrie's Bench

to show the way

In times of deep darkness, we not only need light — we need to be light for one another.

Quote: Parker J. Palmer
Photo: Tobias Rademacher

One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light.

Quote: James Baldwin

Interconnected

Noticing that everything is interconnected, that love and light exist amid the darkness, and that not all is lost, can nourish us on our paths.

Quote: Rose Zonetti
Image: Pop and Zebra

from Gratefulness.org

one more dawn

Hope is what sits by a window and waits for one more dawn,
despite the fact that there is not one ounce of proof
in tonight‘s black, black sky that it can possibly come.

Quote: Joan Chittister, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

nights filled with thin places

“A thin place is where two worlds meet, where heaven kisses earth and eternal time brushes against ordinary time.”
Liz Budd Ellmann

We meet a time of transitions. Days to nights, earthly to sacred and back to earthly. Grounded in all that makes us human, we find ourselves in a series of moments when the air is thin and our vision sharpened.

Shepherds, Innkeepers, Wise ones from afar and terrified Kings, we join them all to witness a birth. A birth that stirs spirits with hope and promise. A birth that stirs egos with threat and tragedy.

The space between heaven and earth has grown thin. The divine was so close that eyes were opened and bodies charged with wonder and truth. A baby was born whose purpose was realized as he drew his first breath. The promise of a coming Messiah had been on the lips of prophets for many years.

Today we move quickly as did Joseph from his dream. An angel came to warn that his newborn was at risk of being killed by an enraged king. He led a donkey carrying Mary and the baby out into the night toward Egypt.

A place to live in safety until Herod was no longer a threat.

Yet as they travelled away, I wonder if they could hear the cries of mothers watching their young sons killed at King Herod’s command. Today the Church remembers The Holy Innocents. First born sons put to death because Herod saw Jesus as a threat to his reign.

We witnessed these deaths just as we witnessed Jesus birth. The veil had thinned. God’s presence was real and the world knew it to be true.

‘A thin place is where two worlds meet…’ We are living through a time where the air is thin and vision sharpened. Rejoicing and revolting, we experience these stories as the foundation of our journey.

These nights – they are filled with thin places.