At least we have lights.

I’ll be honest. I have a very lukewarm attitude about Christmas. Celebrating Christmas is like going to a carnival at the library. Except for Christmas lights. I like Christmas lights. Photos after the break…

Every year I am hushed with awe and wonder at the meaning of the season. And every year I’m nonplused by the circus surrounding it. A time set aside to mark God’s sacrificial love and the hope of new beginning that love delivered to us becomes a hectic holiday for measuring how much we’re loved by how much we’re given. And for feeling like we’ve never been given enough in whatever way our disposition keeps score — presents, time, or love.

Unless we fight to find the sacred space the Advent was meant to create.

And that’s why one of the few things I love about Christmas are the lights. Not the flashy, multi-colored or musical ones. That’s fine for others. If you want to synchronize your holiday display to some Amy Grant, go right ahead. I’m not judging. But for me, it’s all about the simple, steady glow of pure white light. The warm and silent shining. The beautiful and curious aura that draws the eye but yet leaves so much of the scene obscured. The kind of light that doesn’t flash, chase, dance, or flicker. It’s a shy, take-me-or-leave me, here’s-who-I-am kind of light.

Draped, dangled, wrapped or woven. When I see those deceptively simple white points of light, my lukewarm feelings about Christmas warm just a bit. Because, when I see that warm and silent shining, I see — for the briefest of moments — what Christmas is supposed to mean:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it….The true light, which gives light to everyone.

So, when the time came to dress up the Terrace house for it’s first Christmas, you know what we had to go with for some exterior illumination!

When what passes for Christmas out there sweeps me up in it’s wave of discontent….at least we have lights. And maybe. Just maybe… for a second…. I can see.