Prayer Light

Sunday -- a gloomy, wet morning, and a grieving community, yet there is light in the darkness. During second hour, one option was a Taize-style worship service, with prayers around the cross. We sang of light in the darkness and at the end, we left our candles burning with our prayers.

And at the front table, the peace lamp burned: “The light shines in the darkness. “

---

Later in the afternoon, John and I went to the visiting hours for Professor Jim Miller. While we didn’t know Jim well, we have several connections with family members.

We moved slowly through the waiting line, past the display of family photos, and suddenly there was an echo of our peace lamp litany. One of the photos was of a table full of candles, burning brightly. Near it was a card with John 1:5: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Jim’s niece, a friend of our daughter’s, told us that it was a favorite verse of her grandmother’s and that they had a Christmas family tradition of having a candle hidden in each room of the house. They search for the candles and gather them all together in one spot, a festival of light in the darkness.

We did much singing of light today, but the song that is echoing in my ears at the moment is the last one from the Taize service --  Within our darkest night. How appropriate that it came in the section entitled “Preparing to take the Light into the world.” May it be so.