Waun Waiting for the Light
We Are Waiting For the Light
By The Rev. Renee Waun
POSTED: December 6, 2008
We are now in the season when, in the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth is tipping further and further from the sun. The more you travel north from the equator, the darker it gets in the winter months, until you get to the place where it is dark all day and all night.
I had this experience one year when taking a week-long train trip from Switzerland up through Scandinavia and on into Finnish Lapland, way above the Arctic Circle.
I’m glad I don’t suffer from Seasonal Adjustment Disorder, or I probably would have felt very depressed on that particular trip, without seeing the sun for days!
When we think of the holidays that occur from about the end of October to about the beginning of February, they all have to do with light: where is the light, how long will it take for the sun to “come back,” and can we trust the cycles of nature to bring this about?
I remember, as I came back to the States after having the “no sun for days” experience of the North Pole, thinking about the origins of Christmas and how the date of the holiday was finally picked to coincide with pagan celebrations that commemorated the return of the sunlight after the winter solstice on Dec. 21.
In the early primitive religions, no one really understood the science of astronomy well enough to really trust that the light would indeed be coming back after passing the summer solstice, when the days were getting shorter and shorter.
I can only imagine how the people might have been afraid as they watched the days grow shorter and shorter, thinking that the sun might be disappearing, and oh how they yearned for the light!
It’s almost a visceral thing, waiting for the light; knowing that it will take days and even weeks to come around again. And there’s no rushing it. Time takes time.
What is fascinating to me is how intertwined with northern culture our winter holidays are, because down under, in Australia and other countries south of the equator, they have just the opposite cycles.
Right now their days are getting longer and longer, and by Christmas it will so hot they won’t want to cook a holiday dinner. Just a nice cool salad will do!
If Christmas had been born in the Southern Hemisphere, we would all be celebrating it in June, because of all the images of the “light coming into the world to overcome the darkness.”
When I visited southern Australia one time in mid-June, it was cold and dark.
The people were yearning for light. In fact, the yearning was so great that they invented their own holiday to celebrate the June solstice, calling it “Yule,” complete with lighted evergreen trees, gifts and a “jolly old elf.”
Our interfaith friends all have festivals of light at this time of year.
But then again, their religions also originated in the north. I’m thinking of the Jewish holiday of Hanukah (Festival of Lights), and Diwali, which is a significant festival in Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism also called a Festival of Lights.
We can even include Groundhog’s Day because it signifies a cross-quarter time of light that is important to pagans, and the animal was thought to have a special knowledge of the habits of the sun.
The point is, all people of the Earth long for the coming of the light, no matter what hemisphere or culture we are part of. And when it is the season of Advent and Christmas here in the north, I look forward to singing some of the great carols, with powerful words such as “Break forth o beauteous heavenly light, and usher in the morning.” And I am aware that the symbolism is given deeper meaning to me at this particular time of the year, only because of the way the Earth happens to be tilted at the moment.
I hope that the coming of the light will always have a profound meaning for all of us. I hope that the knowledge of the light that is coming into the world will give all of us hope and assurance.
I hope that as we wait for the light, we will be able to satisfy our common yearnings in ways that will bring us to ever new heights of peace and love and joy.
May our days be filled with magnificent light, both now in this special season, and in all the days and seasons of our lives.