January 9, 2025

“Arise shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you

(Isaiah 60:1 NRSVUE)”

Like many children, I was afraid of the dark. Darkness was somewhat muted in my childhood home in Washington by street and car lights. Yet my maternal grandparents’ home in Southside VA was on a country road that seemed light years away from the rest of civilization. When we visited my grandparents and slept in a guest bedroom, the darkness was so thick it was palpable. So that we could sleep and see anything beyond our beds, my parents placed a bed sheet atop a lamp (This was apparently before night lights). With that, the darkness was not as scary or foreboding.

Also, like far too many children, I grew up with overt and subliminal messaging that darkness was not just scary - it was bad. Throughout history, negative messaging surrounding dark skin perpetuated harmful stereotypes and biases against African Americans, undermining both the beauty and worth of my people. 

Although that messaging continues, there is no question in my consciousness that there is great beauty in darkness.  Life for us begins in the darkness of the womb. Moonflowers and jasmine release their fragrance and beauty in the dead of night. As said by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “When it is dark enough you can see the stars.” Nikki Giovanni, who passed away last month said this about my people: “We are more than the sum of our parts. We are beautiful and we are strong. We are dark and we are light.”  

Yet unfortunately today there is darkness in the world that is not beautiful at all: 

-Darkness that continues to kill, injure, starve, and displace thousands of Palestinian people, many women and children, in Gaza. 

-Darkness that drove a truck into New Year’s Eve revelers on the corner of Bourbon and Canal Streets in New Orleans. 

-Darkness that prompted a young man of privilege to assassinate the CEO of a Health care conglomerate in New York City last month.  

-Darkness that moved insurrectionists on January 6, 2021 to storm the Capitol with the intention of overturning election results by any means necessary, including the loss of life.

Despite the darkness of January 6 four years ago, January 6 this year, as it did that year, began the season of Epiphany, Epiphany invites us to seek the light of Christ in unexpected places like a manger in Bethlehem. It reminds us that God is often present in both the ordinary and the overlooked. 

If the rhetoric of recent days and weeks is an indication, I do believe that the next four years beginning January 20th will contain darkness that will not be beautiful. We’ve seen it before.  It will be important for us, who Jesus calls salt and light, to look for the Light, and find it anywhere we can. We are called to recognize, in the words of song of a dear friend of mine, God’s ‘tapestry of splendor that weaves the common and the holy.’ 

If we, like the Magi, seek the Child In The Manger, we will find Him present in both expected and unexpected places. Come what may, that Presence will light our way throughout this year, and graciously give us strength, hope, faith, and love-based resilience. With Immanuel, God with us, I believe we can confront the shadows of injustice, inequality, hatred, and division that pervade this world.

May we arise and shine, for the Light of the World has come. As we walk in the Light, may God’s glory arise upon us and among us, today, and in the days to come. 

Epiphany blessings,