Welcome to Winter

Winter officially began today.  In Washington we had temperatures in the 70s: I was warm walking my errands in my long-sleeved cotton shirt.  Other places in the country had thunderstorms and even forecasts of tornados, not typical of winter weather.  While Kansas City, which was assaulted by ice and snow, will attest that winter is indeed with us, many of its residents will probably also add that just three or four days ago, they were having the tee-shirt weather that we had today.

While we usually think of winter in terms of temperatures and the forms of precipitation that come with them, the Winter Solstice and the official beginning of winter is really about light. This day is the one with the least amount of daylight in the year--our darkest day, making today's bright sunshine and blue skies especially welcomed.

Light is more than the sun we get.  Metaphorically, it represents the positive in life, compared to the darker side of life.  Light also is a reflection of something alive in us, thus the expression about someone having "light in his eyes."  I recently read about how very dark it was when the sun went down until the last century or so because candles were too expensive for ordinary families.  For people at that time, light symbolized prosperity.

Light also brings with it an association with divinity, where candles represent God's light in the darkness of our lives.  Many religious, ethnic, and national holidays that have to do with light are celebrated around the time of the Winter Solstice.  There is even some suggestion that although Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus at the darkest time of the year, that he was probably born in spring.  However, the dark time of the year was chosen for commemoration of the holiday to symbolize the light he brought to a dark world.

This afternoon I heard part of the TED Talk by volunteer fire fighter Mark Bezos, in which he related a fire-fighting incident, in which he did something that was of little consequence to him but held great value to the homeowner, whose home was burning.  After telling the story, he said that often times we overlook doing something that is good because we are waiting to do something great.  He said that everyone of us can do something good every day. (http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_bezos_a_life_lesson_from_a_volunteer_firefighter.html)

When I was a youngster, we learned a song called "This Little Light of Mine."  The words speak to the fact that we often keep our light under a bushel, when we should let it shine.  I believe what that song is about is what Mark Bezos was encouraging.  We should do something good every day that lets our light shine.  Especially at this dark time of year, the world would definitely benefit if each of us brought our light fully into the world.