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It is during this season that Calgary has the early evening, the thick darkness that descends to end our short days. This is the heart of our winter. Solstice, the longest night, has just passed. The cold has driven us indoors and hot drinks and a slow pace are in order.
Sometime immediately after boxing day and just before the new year breaks is this twilight season where I often find myself in a contemplative mood, staring past the lights, seated in a fine chair, pacing myself with a good book and a great glass of port.

I am up late at this time of year, the night seems to stretch on forever – broken only by these shorter hours of sunlight. At times the nighttime clouds lower and the city light reflects back this warm rose hue onto snow-silenced streets. I find myself in a content melancholy at this time.

Expectations on my time lower, and I find my pace slow … I am given time for remembering, reflection. Friends and family who are no longer around me show up as happy ghosts, faded memories recalled by candlelight. For many of us, it is in that very brief space – after Christmas sentimentality and just before the New Year crests and breaks – it is in this lull that we may find the luxury of a moment, this pause. The shopping is over, Family has been welcomed, Friends have dropped by. Dinner has been already been served and re-served, (re-served and re-served).

We are now in this is the season of waiting

The new year is about to begin.

I have sometimes felt that the beginning of the new year in mid-winter is somewhat strange, the year begins when most of the earth is sleeping, dead and quiet. This time seems the quietest of the seasons. Chinese custom has the new year celebration in February, sometime just before Spring. This makes a lot of sense to me. Spring definitely is a season of new beginnings. The start of Spring brings the gardeners out in many of us. We step out onto the lawn, critically examine the plants, greet our neighbors, trim the garden. For the ranchers surrounding Calgary, the cattle have come – usually sometime during those early spring storms. The Farmers are preparing equipment, finalizing loans for seed and gear to carry them through another planting season. In the unofficial new year celebration of spring there is a sense of looking forward of preparing for this time of birth and growth.

Even September brings another type of beginning. A time to sharpen pencils. Freshly scrubbed five-year old faces are soon salt-streaked as moms cry their tears to mingle with the new start in new schools. The late teenage push to finish up the summer job, buy the futon and laptop, and pack it all somehow into the cases that mom and dad drive to the new dormrooms in college. Friends return to town from holidays at cottages and families. The unofficial Calgary Stampede Slack season is drawn to a very firm close as downtown firms gear up for freeze-up. The Fall season is another unofficial new year, one looking to our future goals, our dreams.

I suppose this is why I think that this click of the calendar year in mid-winter is perhaps the most unusual of our beginnings. Unlike our springtime or September start where we look forward, it is in this winter new-years where we spend the most time looking backward. This is the time for reflection. Like your own face reflected in the winter darkened living room window. We find our gaze pointed into our past.
we remind ourselves of where we have just come from. We all look back. ‘This year in review’ is Journalism 101 – at no other time of year are Bush, Brittany and Borat so frequently collaged together to share the same magazine frontpage.

The new year is about to begin. Soon we will sing ancient words, songs of Auld Lang Syne and other incomprehensibles. Exuberant kisses, tears over too much joy, too much family, and tears over too much champagne. But right now we are in this – the afterglow season, the fading season. We are held in the centre of our long twilight.

seeing in the dark

In twilight moments your eye can easily play tricks on you. Some see false shadows looming large enough to unconsciously recoil, others think they see a clear-looking road ahead that actually hides a skittish deer just beyond the headlights reach. Or an elephant as I recently experienced in South Africa’s, Kruger Park. In this dim-season between a new year and the old, even as we reflect backward, we also strain to peer deeply into the possible future. Some of you can only see cliff-edges of unavoidable divorces and deaths in your crystal balls, while others divine the fairer pathways of promotions, celebrations and births.

As we try to look into this dark, we find the twin voices of both hope and despair each calling out to us, begging for our trust – our belief.

For some – despair is altogether too easy to believe in. The evidence of failure and defeat is overwhelming, wars and rumors of war continue to reinforce its seemingly unassailable truth. Our stupidity in a childhood exam haunts peoples choices for decades after, the heartache of being unloved pull us apart. There is no stretch to believe the negative lessons of life.

Yet still we hope. Regardless of our negative experiences, or perhaps because of them, we dream of more. We believe the fairy tale.
We have seen that there are so many intangibles -truths deeper than what I can see, feel, touch or experience – and it is this hope that draws me on.

As the author John Updike writes,

“it seems plain, standing here, that if there is this floor than there must be a ceiling, that the true space in which we live is upward space.”
John Updike

Who has not felt the floor in life? The bottom, the despair? Most of us have felt the floor, we have felt its punishing and unfeeling surface and for some inexplicable reason, this is enough to convince many that there must be something or someone above. If there is a floor there must be a ceiling, if there is darkness there must be light. This is what we, who speak on Scripture, attempt to illuminate. That grace-filled upward curve – the dream of substance beyond sight. That hope that draws us. For we must be very, very clear. This is a hope, not a certainty. Like all the most important things of life – we can never be absolutely certain of them – instead we hope in our Marriages, our Health, our Destiny or Desire.

We rely on the solidity of wishes.

John 8:12 Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.”

The setting is simple, Jesus had just saved the life of a woman on trial. His words had brought clarity and pace to a very volatile situation. The woman’s accusers were starting to leave and he brings out this, the simplest of statements. “I am light, enough for all of the world. You do not need another flashlight or a guide, you do not need other spiritual leaders – trust me, I am enough.”

Such a simple concept. From darkness into light. Day and night juxtaposed. A clear direction … follow

Such arrogance. Imagine, if you will, your friend (a good friend) brings you to hear a man speaking of his authority over your spiritual life – your spiritual decisions. This man does not speak with a sense of spiritual obscurity, but with a direct clarity that is all-to-uncomfortable. There is no room for “That’s a good point” or “some of what you say makes sense…” instead his words are uncomfortably cut and dry. Follow me, I am the way. Jesus steps to stop at the foundation, the reason for all faith. This hope to make clarity out of the confusion and sheer randomness of life. This hope to find our way through the unfamiliar paths of the night, through the deep dark.

Like you, I have all kinds of hopes, some have happened – ski’s for Christmas at 18! Others have not – An audible heavenly voice for advice.

Months ago, I spent some time in South Africa’s Kruger National Park with lions and hippo. It was on our way out of the park on Sunday that we ran out of gas. The gauge still read 1/8th … but there was no more. No cel phone service. Although we flagged down several cars, everyone was heading the wrong way, out of the park. Finally, Hope arrived in the form of a Bus … we asked if he had any spare diesel, the answer was seemingly unfortunate“we are not allowed to carry extra … but today this is Christmas for you!” And out of the front storage came the container full, for free …Hope satisfied.

It is hope that has people re-tell the Christmas story, hope that has people make new years resolutions. It is by hope that all great literature, all great songs, all great relationships, all that is great and beautiful in our world is created. This hope, much more substantial than a wish, for this hope is the first to call for the change. This is Ghandi and Martin Luther King, the desire of George Snyman, the dream of Jesus, the multi-cultural hope of Canada, the deep wish of an addict and the abused, our unspoken and deep-rooted dream.

This image of being re-formed is rooted deep in the foundations of our faith, the resurrection and rebirth of Jesus himself. This wonderful mystery, this true myth. It reveals its weight in darkness. It becomes obvious when abuse and terror is the backdrop, when night falls to cut out the light of peace and love.

Night
There are many different types of nights: the warm, soft inky blackness of African nights with stars blazing in fire 15 feet overhead, the sheer enormity of a night on an open prairie. Nights angry and overcast, nights alive with northern lights choreographed to respond to the call of sunspots 83 million miles away. There is the yin-yang of the crack of cold balanced by indoor warmth in the long northern winter night. For some, the long, silent hours of night stretch out in welcome providing us with the space for thoughts and contemplation, the rare stillness of space calms those at peace in solitary and lonesome pursuits. An apocryphal story has said that the reason Edison invented the lightbulb, was simply in order to allow him to extend his preferred working time – late into the night.

Others fear the emptiness, and imagine monster and nightmare to fill the yawning void. The long jump onto the bed to avoid snatching teeth or claw, sheets over the head for protection – are not actions only for children. The very real world of violence and thieves have us glance over our shoulder and hurry our steps forward as the tails of darkness descend. Night is the canvas on which horrors are painted; as well as the backdrop for dream and vision, a time for song and prayer

Kierkegarde, the Danish philosopher, speaks to us of the “Long, Dark night of the Soul”, a reference to the existential dilemma that as humans we face. The pain that is common to us all. The time we spend groping our way forward, unsure yet hoping that there is somewhere a light, an honest and true light. The hope that our questions, are somehow faithful signposts to something or someone who could answer our longing hearts. A desire for some as yet undiscovered country.

It is in the night that the major decisions of life loom, in this reflective space, this time for thought.

Twilight
After the night arrives the twilight. This space somewhere between our realization that there is a choice in front of us and the decision we finally make. The direction signs for life are not well marked, most of the time we do not even know we have reached a crossroads until a decision looms. Many times our crossroads look like a rejection, a loss. How many men have left home, searching for something or someone more after receiving the “We need to talk.” from a soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.

Others twilight forks in the road arrive as the loss of friends, family, jobs, financial security. We reach the place where we are asked to choose between equally good options. Our decision to go to school for art or economics. In this twilight we are asked to make decisions, important decisions, lifelong …

What happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.
Khaled Hosseini author of The Kite Runner

One of my personal crossroads took place over 15 years ago. It began as I was simply arriving at one of those tables … you know the ones, the ugly industrial folding type, the ones used as book tables or soup kitchen dining tables, this was a registration table. Let me back up and give you a little of my story… throughout my life I wanted to do something that mattered. Something of value. I have grown up in church, I had gone to all the church camps, conferences and services. Amazingly I was not yet jaded. I know others who grew up as I, and they struggle with faith for years. Still I had no idea what I would be doing with my life. I was 19, just turned, my mothers terminal cancer had just taken her life in a matter of months. I felt adrift, in that twilight space between youth and adult, after high school and before career. I wondered when God was going to reveal his plan? You know the plan … the one that all the preachers say we should wait on him for …Shouldn’t it be overwhelmingly clear?

Then, as I already alluded, I showed up at the table, where that day I made a decision, not a huge difference, a matter of a few feet really … I just went to the other table. It was registration day at Bible School, I figured that while I was waiting to hear from God, while I was hoping for a path, it couldn’t hurt to learn more of Scripture. I had registered for a one-year intro course, and at the very last minute … registration day, I went over to a one-year discipleship and missions course. Out of the twilight, and unaware of the consequences, I chose. And this choice has made all the difference.

Slowly, I began a passage through the twilight to lead me to a new place, to many new places. In a journey I have been walking with God

Light
This twilight journey from darkness to light takes many forms. Dave Irvine-Halliday, a veteran mountaineer and professor at the University of Calgary first understood as he came across the sign on the school while trekking in Nepal.

‘Dear trekkers from other countries: We have no teacher for this school. Stay for a few days if you can to teach our children.’

While in the mountains, he had heard children singing outside their school – as he went to investigate, he first saw the sign, then the state of the school. It was small, virtually windowless, without furniture, books or a teacher. Beyond that, it was so dark, that even in the daytime it was almost impossible to see. Dave ” just kept thinking, ‘Is there anything I can do to help them, these people are so poor.

That is when a light “went on” in his life. Dave is a photonics engineer. Here in Calgary, he began work on a technology to develop very small, very bright LED lamps. This small start now soon focused to reach his incredible goal of providing light to nearly 2 billion people in the world who are literally in the dark. He created the “Light Up The World Foundation”

“It is these small powerful 1 watt lights in a home or school that now make a great improvement in health, hygiene, and education. A well-lit table becomes a study area. The kitchen area is now visible to properly clean dishes before daylight. An elderly person can see things lying on the floor, and avoid a dangerous fall,” he explains.

It even saves lives, one of the recipients of this technology explained how having a light after dark kept out the poisonous snakes that slithered into his home from the nearby jungle. It turns out the snakes don’t like the light.

Dave explains, “keep in mind that a 1-watt white LED lamp can illuminate a developing world home to a very useful degree. Therefore the energy used in a single 100-watt incandescent bulb can effectively light an entire typical village. In our minds, small is indeed beautiful. It was in 2000, that Dave had returned to Nepal to light his first village. Today, now Nepal alone is home to 20 LED-lit villages and 1000 homes. Hundreds of others are also aglow around in a further dozen nations around the world.

As we walk forward into this new year, we step out from shadows, we walk through the twilight and squint at the bright lights ahead. We walk forward into hope, we step into the possibilities. Scripture is bright with this language of light. In fact, all great faiths tend to speak of light in this way. God is the one who illuminates, hope is found in the darkness.

Today light is being introduced into yet another home in Mexico as my friend Tracey Long leads a team of families who are together swinging hammers and pulling brushes filled with paint across new lumber for a family that until yesterday was living in a cardboard shack covered by a ripped tent. Perhaps at this moment, children are walking into a home filled with light reflecting off new and safe walls. Walking on a clean floor, sleeping in beds.

In another couple weeks a couple of teams that I have been helping to prepare for months will fly out of Calgary, travel through the night to arrive into the glorious African light of South Africa, and Zambia. They will be prepared to provide the light of hope to hundreds more. Later this year I wish to look towards, to stare into the sun, searching for the possibilities ahead of me for hope in Congo and other new areas. To ignite the light of hope, to share it with others, and by doing so, strengthen and renew my own.

Have you ever gone a little far in describing yourself? “I am the light of the world”. This is a strong statement, self-confident, assured. Say something like this once and you can be forgiven for exuberance, for Mohammed Ali style showmanship … “I am the greatest, no I am the double-greatest!” “I am the light of the world” Get a bit excited and going a little too far with the new years punch. Say it twice and you are starting to sound a little extreme.

Let us be clear, this is only one of the 7 times that Jesus says something of this nature. He is aware of his claim … I am light, I am the bread of life, I am the door, I am the shepherd, I am resurrection and life, I am the way, truth, life, I am the vine.

I mean you can’t just say something like that, you have to back it up with something … but how do you back up a statement like that if you are just a good teacher, a wise man. You cannot. No. Jesus was saying something more, much more.

I am God. I hold sunlight in my hands, I speak and morning breaks. When I shut my eyes – night falls. My voice which can cause thunder to fall silent in awe, whispers in your ear loudly enough to cause you to doubt your own self, to desire me. Your heart knows I live.

I am light to your own darkness. I am hope.

History is filled with incredible stories of those who have believed that hope so deeply, so truly, so fully that they did something about it. They looked both ways and stepped out of the twilight, changed their lives.

Looking for words

Like all of humanity, I find myself often stuck in this twilight of unknowing. Dimly we see through the glass. There are questions that bother me … why does evil seem to have so much power? How come God feels so distant at times. They become part of my theology, the beliefs that we collect over the years that attempt to explain God in some way.. We all have a variety of similar articles of faith, Some of these beliefs are designed to pull him closer, while others are used to keep him safely distant. Like so many others before us, Jesus is bold enough to ask us to release our own articles of faith – our deepest beliefs – the various versions of false gods all of us hold.

• gods who are powerless in the face of horror.
• gods who are designed to serve me.
• gods who have a wonderful plan for my life that will probably involve a nicer car.
• gods of judgmentalism.
• to drop the god of bitterness, anger and fear.
• to drop this faith in gods who don’t really care all that much for me.

The strange request is for us to mistrust our personal articles of faith. As Thomas Merton, the Catholic Monk writes. “As we stood in the chapel and recited the Apostle’s Creed, I used to keep my lips shut tight, with full deliberation and of set purpose, by way of declaring my own creed which was: “I believe in nothing.” Or at least I thought I believed in nothing. Actually, I had only exchanged a certain faith, faith in God, Who is Truth, for a vague uncertain faith in the opinions and authority of men and pamphlets and newspapers-wavering and varying and contradictory opinions which I did not even clearly understand.”

Each and every day, Jesus wants to save us all. He brings light into our lives, hope into the room. At some point, in some way that only mystery can explain, many are somehow convinced – we grab hold of this truth. This is not an intellectual salvation, although our minds are deeply involved. Nor is it altogether emotional, although we often feel tremors through our heart from this irresistible pursuit of God

This is instead an act of the will. We hear the invitation to hope and we dare to accept. We dare to act like peace, love, and hope matter. We find confidence in the unbending love of God, the overwhelming desire for you. God believes in you. We hear the words, hardly dare to believe they could be true and yet somehow trust.

We hope.