With You Is the Fountain of Life

We welcome the light. In 1974, a scientist discovered an ancient burial chamber in Newgrange, Ireland, that has a particular attachment to the Winter Solstice, the day after the longest night of the year. On the morning of December 21 (and a few days before and after), if there are no clouds, light streams in through a tiny hole above the door’s lintel for a few moments as the small porthole and the sun align. All other days, the cave-like structure remains dark.

From December to the middle of February, most of us in the northern hemisphere become weary of the winter dark, knowing that we come home from work in the dark and leave the next morning in the same darkness. Our sleep patterns change. We go to bed early and want to sleep later. We become more lethargic. We sometimes need more food. Our bodies are unaccustomed to the constant darkness. Then about early February, life seems to become normal again. We don’t have to turn on the car lights to drive to work in the morning, and we don’t start readying for bed the moment we return home from the workday. Our steps lighten, and we have more energy and zest.

Thank goodness for seasons of light and our body’s flexibility to adjust to both light and dark. But just as the weary international traveler knows the best way to recover from jet lag is to sit out in the sun, so do we know that this light of God has the power to provide the same kind of spiritual recovery.