There is a beloved Quaker saying: "We hold you in the light." Although the origin of the phrase is murky and its meaning murkier, it draws on old Quaker themes of divinity and light, comfort and community. In her Friends Journal article, Ruthanne Hackman writes about the comfort of receiving cards signed, "Holding you in the light," during a painful time of her life. To say, "We hold you in the light," is therefore both an expression of solidarity and a hope for relief, a vision of lifting out of darkness into a place of warmth, ease, and clarity.
It is a good time of year to be talking about light. There are at least five celebrations in the month of December that celebrate light amidst moments of deep darkness.
Jewish communities celebrate an eight-day Hanukkah festival in late November or early December. Eventually called the "Festival of Lights," Hanukkah commemorates the purification and rededication of the Second Temple in 164 BCE after demoralizing acts of desecration. Centuries later, the Talmud added a miraculous addendum. After purging the temple of all profaned materials, the Maccabees found only one day's worth of ritual oil, still sealed, still pure. They lit the candelabra for one day and then marveled as it burned for eight: the time it takes to press, seal, and consecrate new oil.
On December 24, Christian communities attend a Christmas Eve service. In Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist traditions, this service begins at midnight and is the first service of Christmastide (or more commonly, the twelve days of Christmas). A common practice at this service is to extinguish all the lights in the room, save one candle. This candle is often carried by a young woman who symbolizes Mary, the mother of Jesus (or, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Theotokos, Mother of God). Her candle lights the candle of a few others, who light the candles of a few more others, on and on until the entire room is bathed in candlelight.
(Two other December celebrations that center themes of light are Luciadagen and Kwanzaa.)
I am most intrigued by celebrations surrounding the Winter Solstice, the day when the Earth's axis is tilted furthest from the sun and therefore the shortest day of the year. In the northern hemisphere, that brief day was this past week. This day was called Yule in ancient Scandinavia and was originally jól in Old Norse, likely the root of the English word jolly. Yule developed into a twelve-day festival centered on themes of light, fire, and feasting and possibly ritualized the death and rebirth of the sun. Yuletiders celebrated by decorating trees, hanging mistletoe, giving gifts, and burning a fallen tree (i.e., Yule log) for twelve days.
I have always found it intriguing, this celebration of light at the very moment when there was almost none to be found. There are only six hours of daylight in southern Scandanavia on the winter solstice; in the north, the sun barely summits the horizon before sinking again. The night is long and the winter, longer, so I love this idea of grounding hope upon the firmness of terrestrial law. Celebrating light within such darkness is one of the most inspiring and profound rituals of hope I know of.
But is this not hope's essence? This is hope: to celebrate the coming of light at the very moment when there is almost no light to be found. Hope does not require light; hope creates light. Jews celebrate light when darkness is certain. Christians kindle a lone candle at midnight. Yuletiders light fires during days filled with night.
"We hold you in the light" is an expression of solidarity and a hope for relief, but these celebrations compel us to remember: when we say, "We hold you in the light," we also mean, "We will wait with you in darkness." It is grim recognition of present bleakness harnessed with a fierce certainty of future dawning. "We hold you in the light" is a stubborn surety that light will return, if only a little bit. Tomorrow will bring more light than today and less light than the day after. Light dawns and days lengthen: there has not been a single revolution of the earth when this has failed to be true.
We hold you in the light, beloveds.
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