Explore the Calendar Of Light

during the dark season

For the month of December, you’re invited to join people around the world who are centering their day in a practice of peace. The Calendar of Light is brought to you by Alignment Interfaith Contemplative Practices in partnership with the Iona Community. “As we engage in the ongoing work of seeking peace in a world ravaged by war, pain, and loss, we look to the wisdom of our world's traditions. Each door offers a five minute practice of peace and light from a different tradition.” (You’ll find an offering from me behind one of the doors this month, too.)

The first door opens today.

Light shows up in so many different ways, which you’ll explore when you take time to experience the calendar this month of December. Sometimes it’s a burst of atmospheric energy, a brilliant sunrise after a long night, a single star visible only because the darkness of the season is so deep and wide. Sometimes it’s love made edible in the form of bread baking in a warm kitchen, a cup of tea left to steep outside your bedroom door, or dinner savored by candle light. Sometimes it’s a glimmer of hope during a stretch of depression, the smile you didn’t expect from a stranger, or a prayer lifted skyward on a wisp of distant smoke. Sometimes it’s moving slow enough to savor the light that lingers when you show up with peace at your center, despite everything.

Poem included titled as A Case for Slow Living, In Winter in Slouching Toward Radiance

Note to self: Try to find the velvet in the long nights.¹ Notice light where it lingers, because it does, sometimes, even during dark days. Remember your creatureliness holds hands with the holy ordinary that binds the days together. Forgive yourself for finding hard things hard, and find the balance of facing the conditions that await you outside and burrowing in blankets on the couch. Light lingers, even now.

Poem included in Church of Shadow & Light, which you can preorder now.

As the holiday season begins, a season that can be complicated and full of grief as much as it can be joyful: May you notice glimmers enough to smooth any rough edges, and take solace in these words of Maggie Smith: “Yes, there’s darkness—in this world and in your one, small life—but there is also light streaming in from many directions. Some is coming from so far off, it hasn’t reached you yet. Turn your face to it as often as you can. No darkness deserves your full attention.” May you infuse your own December calendar, in the midst of work deadlines, holiday shopping, solitude (welcome or not), and family gatherings (wanted or not) with that which offers the sort of light you need to move forward in ways that offer peace to the world.

1. I’m writing this in the northern hemisphere, so if you’re in the south, may you find the balance of light and dark that serves best for the season you’re in and the situations you’re navigating.