Seeing in the Dark

                                                                                                                                   Monday's Theme: Relying on the Moon
 
      Tonight, will be a Full Moon. It comes ‘round every twenty-nine days to remind us that impossible is somehow possible. One night each month the Bella Luna brings light to darkness. One night each month we are given new eyes to see.
 
     More than any other year in my lifetime, 2020 has turned so many of us upside-down and inside-out. More than any other time so many of our darkest corners can now be seen in startling and disorienting ways. Light has shown on the disparities of wealth and access. Light has shown on our national schism of politics. It has shown on the deep and wide injustices of racism. With each COVID diagnosis, we should pause and take care – of the one diagnosed and those around that person. Even more so, with each death resulting from COVID, we should stop and recognize and properly grieve – for the one who has died and those who mourn. This stopping. This honoring. This treasuring of each life is who we are. It’s what we do. But it feels impossible to stop or even pause this year. It’s all too much, far too much. It’s happening so fast, and there is so much piling on. The darkness of 2020 feels like it is coming from the inside-out.
 
     Over the years I have come to rely on the moon. There is a sure and steadiness about it. There is a comfort and reassurance, a “hold on `cause something is holding onto you,” about me and the moon. In this year of up being down and down being up, the living of our days just sometimes feels impossible. The making of our way in and through, just feels impossible. Even the getting out of bed in the morning can sometimes feel impossible. And yet and always the moon is there. The moon shows up. Each night. Not at the same time, or even in the same place. But it is there. Sometimes I have to wait for it, sometimes I have to look for it. Sometimes on cloudy nights I just have to trust that it is there -- and miracle of miracles -- it is. And has been there all along. 
 
     In our fits and starts, in our not yet’s, in all of our impossibilities of this particular Advent, we are somehow managing to see in the dark. Carrie Newcomer, poet-singer says it pretty well: “Impossible just takes a little more time.” This full moon night early in this season of waiting, is already reminding us that light does come – just when we need it the most. We just have to believe we can see.
 
 

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