December | 2024 | He's Taken Leave

I will never understand it. The Christmas season is one filled with light and hope, yet more people are feeling sad than at any other time of the year.

I checked to be sure I’m not spreading fake news. The National Alliance on Mental Illness tells us a 2021 survey shows that 3 in 5 people in America say the holidays make them sad.

A friend who has had a rough year posted her annual birthday note a couple of days ago to share her trials and joys with her tribe. I responded and suggested that sometimes the best we can do is stay in the vicinity of the light. In the shadows, but never far from the light.

But, I don’t really believe that. I don’t.

I wrote recently about preparations for the Christmas Candlelight Service at the local Christian university—one in which I have participated for well more than forty years. Nearly every time I have participated, I have found a new truth to enlighten my journey. I’ve shared many of those truths with my readers.

This year is no exception, even though my participation was in a very different capacity than those services for the past four decades.

When I played my horn with the brass group for the event, we always left the stage soon after the halfway point in the service. Sitting in pews reserved for us, we simply became audience members, enjoying the beautiful choral music the young folks (getting younger every year, seemingly) presented.

I was carried away. Every time.

This year as a vocalist, I stayed on the stage until, as my sweet mother-in-law would have put it, the last dog was hung. (I’m not sure what that means, but it seems to indicate staying until the entire event is finished, so I’ll go with it.)

Right up at the top of the risers, I and my compatriots stood or sat, depending on our part in the program. With a bird’s-eye view, one might say.

We were on display to the whole audience, but we also had a clear line of sight to every part of the cathedral. The view was eye-opening. Well, it took me until the last night to open my eyes, but I can’t unsee it in my mind now.

Forty-five times, I had seen it from the same perspective. Yet, it was always moving.

This is different.

I’m mostly thinking about the candlelighting ceremony at the end of the service.

Over the years, we would sit in the pews, with the student candle-lighters stopping at the ends of each row, lighting the candle of the person sitting there. Then that person would pass the flame to their neighbor, and they to theirs, until all the candles were aflame.

As we sang the words to the old Christmas carol, Silent Night, we held the candles close until the third verse. Then, as we began to sing about the radiant beams from His face, each of us would lift our candle high, flooding the huge building with brilliant light.

It was always moving. I know—I’m repeating myself. It’s still true. Again and again, I’ve been moved.

It all changed drastically this year, especially on the final night. I had always thought it was only that last verse—when we raised our candles—that was moving.

But, on this final night, I had tears in my eyes through every verse of the carol. The tears started before the music did.

I have known how it worked—the sharing of the flame, one person to the next. Yet I’ve never seen the big picture of how it occurred, except from my limited perspective amongst the folks right beside me.

I suppose it may be a bit like Job felt in the Old Testament. He had heard with his ears—he knew a little of what he was supposed to know—but seeing with his own eyes made all the difference. Now, he had experienced it. (Job 42:5)

Experiencing it is different than just having a head knowledge. I’m sure of it.

Throughout the entire service (all three nights) I had looked at the dim cathedral and knew there were individuals there—a number of them friends and acquaintances— but because of the darkness, I couldn’t see any individual faces, only a huge indistinct crowd of humanity.

And, as the ceremony began, from my bird’s-eye view, I watched the young folks carry their candles to the dark pews to spread the light. And finally, on the last night, I saw it clearly.

Through the whole room, looking completely random and without plan, the light spread. I could see flames shift from one person to the next, moving laterally along each pew. It wasn’t uniform. There was no pattern—or seemingly not. Row after row, I watched the lights flicker across from side to side.

Now, what was it that I was supposed to be seeing? Sure, the candles were lit in preparation for the holding forth of the light later on, but that wasn’t it.

There! I saw it!

Faces appeared behind the candles. Individual faces. On my left. In front of me, not far back. Then, way back to the right.

Faces.

No longer simply a mass of humanity, the bodies in the pews had faces—identities that could be clearly and individually seen.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” (Isaiah 9:2, NIV)

How did I miss that?

We who have come to His light come as individuals out of profound darkness. And, His light shines on us.

It shines on us. You. Me.

Yes, we’re part of the great cloud of witnesses—like John the Baptist, bearing witness to The Light—but we come to our Savior and He knows each one of us.

He knows me.

He knows you.

And now, we have the great privilege of reflecting The Light.

Again, from that vantage point, I watched the flames—held close throughout the song—as they were thrust forward and upward to the ceiling. If I had been moved through all of those years when I was sitting in the audience, it was spectacular seeing it from above and in front of it!

Spectacular. An explosion of light!

We can spread the light—one to another. It’s in His plan that we do that. We can even hold our light close and have light for the journey.

He knows each one of us and loves us in our individuality.

But, it’s also in His plan that the world around us be overwhelmed by the brilliance of His Light, shared by His people collectively, walking in love for Him and for our neighbors, the people who dwell in the profound darkness.

Overwhelmed.

I’m not sure we’re doing that yet.

But, it’s not too late.

I’m pretty sure it will be spectacular.

Spectacular.

“I will make you a light to the nations, so you can bring my deliverance to the remote regions of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6b, NET)

^“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16, KJV)

“Silent night! Holy night!
Son of God, love’s pure light
radiant beams from Thy holy face
with the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth!
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth!“
(from Silent Night by Joseph Mohr)

I’m sitting at my desk in the converted garage. There’s a space heater beside me blowing warm air directly at my legs and feet.

I’m not shivering. It’s a good thing.

I wouldn’t expect the reader to know it, but I don’t love the cold. I blame my father. He would be happy to accept the blame. When he was discharged from the Navy in the early 1960s, he took his red-headed wife and five youngsters to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas to make their home.

Saying, “I want to live somewhere where I can sweat twelve months of the year,” the man settled in for the foreseeable future, there in that place with two seasons—Hot and Hotter.

My resulting thin blood has never thickened, in spite of nearly fifty years in a climate with four seasons per annum.

I realized something recently. It was never taught in Sunday School, back when I was learning about King David—he with the harp, and the sling for which he took five smooth stones once upon a time.

In the book of First Kings, David is old. Well, okay, he is about the age I am now. The book’s first verse says, “King David was very old; even when they covered him with blankets, he could not get warm.” (1 King 1:1, NET)

I’m reasonably certain that, if one were to ask her, the Lovely Lady would tell them that this verse describes me to a T.

I don’t like to shiver.

It is the week in which our local university’s choirs present their Candlelight Service. I have had the pleasure of having a small part in the service for many years, all of them before this while playing my horn with the brass ensemble that you might describe as the “warm-up band.”

Now. There’s a good word!

Warm.

I like that.

Oh—where was I? Oh yes, the Candlelight Service.

This year, I am enjoying singing with one of the choirs, as part of a community group, combined with the University Chorus. I’m certain I was not selected for my great skill. More probably it was just to have a warm body sitting in the bass section.

Oh. There it is again. That word.

Warm.

It is nice, isn’t it?

We arrived, the Lovely Lady and I, for the dress rehearsal last night in the beautiful Cathedral of the Ozarks—having walked the few blocks from our home to the campus. It seemed the huge room was almost as chilly inside as the exterior temperature had been, but I took my coat off anyway.

I wished I hadn’t. Several times during the rehearsal.

When they turned the spotlights on, the young man next to me (knowing I was cold) leaned close and stage-whispered (Well? We were on a stage!) in the general direction of my ear, “Now you’ll get warm!”

Light that makes you warm. Now, there’s a thought.

I have been on stages before when the lights were so hot I soaked the shirt I was wearing. Sweat running down one’s spine is not all that much more comfortable than shivering in the cold. Not much, but some.

The spotlights didn’t make me warm. I think they may have been LEDs. I understand the reasons for using LEDs, but the old incandescent bulbs made better heaters.

But, at one point, the choir director had our group sit while the Cathedral Choir (the first-string, you know) ran through one of their pieces. I thought it might be my imagination, but it seemed that I was less cold.

Then, when they sat down later, I was certain of it. It was warmer when they were standing in front of us. Definitely warmer.

I guess the reader understands by now that I like the warmth. But, I also like it when a concept breaks through the chill and warms my brain, too. Maybe, it’s just the light going on in there that does that.

The young folks standing near us warmed us up.

It’s a time-honored concept. I’m not going to belabor the point, but we warm each other up. By our proximity.

Do you know what the wise men who were advisors to King David suggested for his problem all those centuries ago? They selected a young woman to be his nurse and to lie beside him in the bed to warm him up. And, before your mind can explore that road down toward the gutter, the text is very specific; he was not intimate with her. She simply shared her body warmth to make him less cold. (1 Kings 1:4)

We’re warmer when we are close to folks we love. Or, even just like.

It’s odd; I’ve never thought of the Christmas season as a cold time. I, who have disrespected winter again and again, both in real life and in my writing, always think of Christmas as being a warm time.

Perhaps it’s the closeness of our family at this time of year. And of our friends. And our acquaintances at church—and the coffeeshop—and the Christmas parade.

We share warmth.

With music. And love.

And Joy that shall be to all people.

I’m aware that many don’t have family to get together with. But, the concept works with people in general—getting together to share the joy of the coming of a Savior all those years ago.

Share the warmth.

I’m going to do that with close to a thousand people for each of the next three nights.

I’m already feeling warmer.

You?

“Music brings a warm glow to my vision; thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.” (Haruki Murakami)

“Furthermore, if two lie down together, they can keep each other warm,
but how can one person keep warm by himself?” (Ecclesiastes 4:11, NET)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

Month: December 2024

Out of the Shadows

Warm