We used our first non-family baby-sitter to attend one of our favorite Christmas traditions, the Lovefeast at Wake Forest. It’s such a beautiful way to start off the Christmas season. Last year when I wrote about Lovefeast, I ended up just borrowing the words from my 2009 post. It’s not that I lack any creativity to write a new post about an old tradition (ok, maybe that’s some of it), it’s just that every year when I go back and read that original post, I feel a renewed sense of spirit just re-reading those words. So I’ll share them here once again and hope that they can be a reminder of the Christmas spirit for others too.
There’s a moment in the service when the lights go dim and the ushers arrive at the end of each aisle with a lit candle. Person to person, candle to the candle, the chapel becomes full of a warm, hushed glow in a matter of minutes. It gives me goose bumps.
As we touch our candles from right to left, I always think of the end of my favorite quote from Marianne Williamson - “as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” I think about how our dark world would be so vividly light up if each one of us just shared a little bit more of their light with every they came into contact with.
Easy to remember in the warm glowing chapel as “Joy to the World” swirls around you. Difficult to remember in the day to day of life that involves work stress, cranky customer service reps, bad traffic, late fees, tense relationships and shouting heads on every major station.
Letting your light shine so that others might do the same – this is what Christ was born to do. Celebrating Christmas is a remembrance of the birth of the greatest life that walked among us, that made a point to gently touch touch his light to everyone he came in contact with.
“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” - John 12:46
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