This morning's gentle rain put beads of light on our bare Japanese maple -- take this photo and multiply it by ten to get a picture of the whole tree. My eye could see all the beads of light when looking at the whole tree, but the camera couldn't.

By early afternoon, the rain shifted to snow, seen here on the last two leaves left on the maple.

And the snow continues to fall -- when I look out the window, the sky and the yard are full of light, held by the snow, though now it is well after sunset.

Here's our first Advent candle lit and burning, just before I closed the curtains, at that time of day when light and darkness mingle, in this season of the year where we're thinking more about darkness and light.

I spent the day at Pathways Retreat Center for a day of Gestalt Pastoral Training. The yellow maples glowed outside, and juncos flitted around finding food not too far from the building.

There were many moments of light inside as well, ones that I'll come back to in memory, but those are private for the people involved, so instead I'll share a visual. This one fits in well with this past month's themes of light and darkness, and with the past week's recurring theme of leaves. It caught my eye from across the room.

We ended with a song that has become part of our closing ritual and that done with hand movements created by the Assembly dance group, helps us to embody and celebrate what happens with Gestalt Pastoral Care:
        God to enfold you.
        Christ to uphold you.
        Spirit to keep you in heaven's sight.
        So may God grace you,
        heal and embrace you,
        lead you through darkness into the light. 
                        John Bell and Graham Maule, Iona Community

May you also be enfolded, upheld, kept, graced,healed, embraced, and may God lead you through darkness into the light.

I woke up this morning realizing that I'd gotten sidetracked last night and despite good intentions to protect the remaining outdoor rosebud, it hadn't happened. Still, it seems to have survived the frost. Not bad for the first day of November.

Out of curiosity, I checked the fountains in front of the music building late this afternoon, and they were running. Not only that, the drops were catching the light.

It's next to impossible to catch the dancing of the water with a still photo, though, and it's in the dance and the play of the droplets that I saw sparks of light.

This may look like an ice sculpture, but it's not that cold yet, not here anyway.

It is the first of November, though, and so All Saints day, the day we remember those who have gone before us into the adventure of death, yet who remain with us in the great circle of saints, past, present and future. At an All Saints vesper service this evening, we lit candles and wrote names on paper leaves, and remembered our loved ones, our ordinary saints. Another moment of light.

I was trying to take a photo of the cloudy, lavender, just-before-sunrise sky, and suddenly
                                                    Sunrise!

Later, I lit a candle for a direction session this afternoon, with these words from the opening prayer in Philip Newell's Celtic Treasure:

    We light a light
                    in the name of the God who creates life,
                          in the name of the Saviour who loves life,
                                   in the name of the Spirit who is the fire of life.

We ended the session with a small ritual from Children and Worship – snuffing the flame of the Christ candle and then lifting the candle snuffer so that the smoke swirls through the room, with the words:

 The Light that was in one         time and one place
        is now in all places,
                    in all times.

 

Light that has changed, Light that is absent and yet still present.