Winter Solstice—the Longest night
22 December 2017, 3:00 am
Yesterday, I awoke feeling pretty crappy. I wonder if my heart is acting funky. Or maybe I am having some odd reaction to the dairy in last night’s meal.
Then a new thought, maybe the planet is just too far from the sun.
If I am impacted by cloud cover and rainy days, maybe there’s something inside me reacting to the solstice. After all, it is the darkest day of the year.
As a kid I understood that during the winter solstice the earth was actually closer to the sun than during the summer solstice and that the reason temperatures go down has to do with the tilt of the earth on its axis. Our country is on the part that’s tilted away from the sun right now.
The coolness of the solstice I was told was that around mid day the planet is supposed to be perfectly aligned so that you could sit an egg upright and it would balance.
Yeah, that never worked for me.
Other than my excitement about the possibility of balancing eggs, I have paid very little attention to a solstice.
But about 12 hours ago, I decided to watch the night when I noticed her approach. Evidence of her imminent arrival was announced in the quality of light that preceded her like fragrance on a breeze. By 5:30 pm she owned the sky.
In all these years and all the days in a given year I have never noticed the night like this.
This night was deep dark, a dye enveloping the world outside my window.
Uncompromising.
Overwhelming.
Astonishing.
Breathtakingly beautiful.
I only saw night come in because I was watching. What else? What else have I been missing because i have been too busy to pay attention?
Then I see something. Right here. God handing me another piece of evidence that He still loves women—
EXHIBIT 2: the mystery and beauty of the long dark night
This post first appeared on Presenting Evidence That God Still Loves Women And Writers, please read the originial post: here
