THE LONGEST NIGHT
This Longest Night service is an in-person experience in the Chapel, at 6pm on Dec 1, 2022. It follows a simple Order of Service and is not LiveStreamed. If you missed the service, consider this reflection.
A Reflection for Advent
Ring the Bells that still can ring, Forget your ‘perfect’ offering
There is a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.
– Leonard Cohen “Anthem”
“This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild
Had Mary been filled with reason,
there would be no room for the child.”
- Madeleine L’Engle
The world has changed and we have changed. The pandemic frayed relationships and changed churches profoundly. Political division and rancor are evident on our devices and in print and in our families. Weather events and climate migration cause disruption. Violence in places we had thought of as safe has changed us. We have been through some harrowing times- we are weary and long for peace.
Advent invites us to welcome the Light, to prepare for God’s presence in unexpected places, and to celebrate- to ring the bells that still can ring.
The ‘bells’ that still can ring are:
• The stories we know, that may sound different, but still have good news in them.
• The songs that speak of a world we long for and dream of, not yet arrived in its entirety
• Offerings that bring something good into the world for God’s sake
• Candles that make visible the truth that a light shines in the darkness and that it is a living thing- not the electrical grid- a precarious flame- but full of hope
• That the experience of the Presence, of Incarnate Love, can still surprise us.
• That gathering for worship can strengthen us for service and widen our hearts-
So this season, in spite of whatever grief or apprehension we may carry, we will gather week after week to ring the bells that still can ring. We acknowledge our longing, and celebrate that it is IN this darkness that the Light shines- and the darkness will never overcome it.