Happy Solstice! (Darkness is over, if you want it)

I remember laughing at the great 90s Saturday Night Live Skit where the two talk show hosts were so paralyzed by their need to be politically correct, that their dialogue became stretched thin and to the point of absurdity.    Instead of Christmas carols, they sang holiday carols with language generic enough to mean almost nothing to anyone listening.   This awkward comprise of language was played for laughs but many don’t find the humor in this type of cultural compromise.  Some have even called the dialogue of the skit a representation of the so-called "War on Christmas."
In the last 24 hours the northern hemisphere has emerged from its longest night and its shortest day.   Hundreds of years ago, when your livelihood depended on agriculture, and there was never a chance to head to the supermarket after work for fresh food, the return of the sun was a very welcome sign.   How welcome was the sign?   One worthy of a massive party (more like debauchery).     Eventually, cultural pressure combined the solstice with the Christian observance of the birth of Jesus.  This newly merged tradition was observed three days after the solstice.    The goal was to contain the solstice party and make it a spiritual event that was more palatable to those who saw a threat in the debauchery holiday.
Today, December 22, the sun is starting our annual process of shortening the night, which has both literal and metaphorical meaning every year.   For a desert dweller like me, the temperature dip of winter is offsetting and for many, the season is physically and emotionally depressing.    The celebration of solstice recognizes the beginning of the end of the long nights, and its linkage to Christmas joins the expectation of more natural sun with emergence of another spiritually son, notably in just three days (as in the gospel stories).
As our days begin to lengthen, the advent and Christmas calendar implore us to find all of the contemporary areas of darkness and bring light to each of them.    I believe that if the message of this season was one of offering the light of truth, justice, compassion, mercy, and hope there wouldn't need to be a discussion about the cultural disappearance of Christmas.     Instead, there is ample proof for those with reservations, suspicions, and hostility about that the Christmas holiday has little to do with the end of darkness, literal or metaphorical.   Sadly, there are too many heartbreaking and convicting examples that they can provide.   There has been much harm done in the name of Christ, in defense of Christmas, and in defense of other professing Christians.   These experiences need a solstice of the soul as well.
Tonight will be shorter than the last, and each day that follows will grow in warmth and brightness.   Each day's new light is an example of the metaphor of the Gospel of John.   In John, Jesus is the light of the world, not the "right" of the world.   There are too many examples of where the right words about Christmas and Christ have created the same kind of paralyzed banter as the Saturday Night Live skit.    We may speak all we want about values, but if the audience can only see, feel, and experience darkness, then we are perpetually at the solstice and never to arrive at Christmas.  The energy spent on the "right"  ways to talk about Christmas is better spent finding the means to extinguish the very real darkness that many live in spiritually, physically, and emotionally.

Happy solstice! Now, let us share the light where it is needed most. May the light of each day lengthen through our spirit driven action, may each person inhabit less darkness through our love, and may the light of the world shine without the distortion of our hypocritical words.    May we all declare one last war, a war not on Christmas, but on darkness!  That is what sun/son is for, after all.