If I had to guess, I would say that, if you are a person reading my words right now, you have seen one of the memes floating around the Internet-world this Christmas that featured quotations from Howard Thurman’s work.  And I’ll be honest — it was just such a quotation that led me to  Bruce Epperly‘s The Work of Christmas and that led me to reflect on that work.

And because of my fascination with what some might call a theology of light, it was today’s focus of reflection that captured my spirit the most:

I will light Candles this Christmas;
Candles of joy despite all sadness,
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch,
Candles of courage for fears ever present,
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,
Candles of love to inspire all my living,
Candles that will burn all the year long (67-68).

This brief poem actually comes from a collection of poems and prayers written by Thurman, titled The Mood of Christmas and Other Celebrations (1973).  It is the very first poem, meant to offer the reader a welcome into his ponderings on the ritual of remembrance.  For it is ritual, writes Thurman, and in particular, celebration, that invites us into life.  And these words are, for me, more litany than poem, because it calls me to something, it calls me to a reflective action.

Christmas begins in darkness — the darkness of the womb, the darkness of a world of violence, of oppression, of fear.  But then, then comes the light, the light that is, as Thurman says, the flow of life itself.  The light that shines on our true identity, our identity as children of God, and the light that shines from within us, we who are the bearers of a love that is the candle that is the light the world.

That is, if we will just light that candle.  This is a call to be the light, everyday.  Will you?  We will fail many times, but will you continue to try?  Please, for your own sake and the sake of the world, do.  And I will be right there with you, trying and sometimes failing, but often succeeding to protect that candle against the winds that want desperately to blow it out and let the dark prevail.

Merry Christmas, one and all.