Azzi: Let there be light
The Winter Solstice was marked in the Northern Hemisphere this week on Wednesday, December 21, 2022, at 16:48 EST. That is the moment the earth reached its maximum tilt away from the sun - tilted on an axis like a gyroscope - and heralded the beginning of longer days and shorter nights.
Quite aside from my love of traditions and the interconnectedness of much we encounter at this time of year I must admit I hate the shortness of daylight, the increasingly lengthy hours of darkness that accompany Fall. I hate shorter and shorter days and I worry about not finishing everything I have yet to complete, of not telling each story to its fullest.
Of not listening to the words between the words of my existence.
It’s reported that the tradition of placing a single candle in a window in America dates back to Colonial Days when candles were often lighted when a family member was away. Winter travel through snow-covered lands was challenging and homes were often miles apart. A candle – even in the house of a stranger – was a sign of refuge and shelter, of welcome, of safety.
We have no snow in Exeter, NH, yet we continue to light candles across the landscape, I believe, to honor those who struggle against oppression, like those whom we commemorate in the 2nd century BCE Maccabean Revolt against Greek-Syrian oppressors and the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
We have no snow, yet we continue to light candles across the landscape, I believe, to honor the hardships of sojourners, like those whom we commemorate who traveled from Nazareth in the north of Galilee in winter caravans when cold rain was common and where nighttime temperatures sometimes fell below freezing, along the lowlands of the Jordan River then west over the Jerusalem hills and down into Bethlehem.
As Christian or Muslim I’ve always loved the Christmas tradition - especially strong in New England - of placing a single lighted candle in each window of a house, perhaps in part because, growing up in Manchester, NH as a son of immigrants, the candles in our windows were made by Daddy.
Daddy recycled wooden textile spools - themselves made by immigrant labor - that came from the mills along the Merrimack River where many immigrants got their first jobs in America. Daddy put sockets in them and carefully wired them so they could sit solidly on our window sills. They were plugged in at dark - turned off at bedtime - except on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve when Mummy insisted they - and the Christmas tree - stay on all night.
Last year a granddaughter, whom Daddy never had the opportunity to meet, rescued, cleaned, re-wired, and made whole again four of his surviving candles.
I believe that in those moments - moments of Baraka, blessing powers - that as she plugged the candles in she met her grandfather - Jiddoo - and gave his memory light.
I believe that In those moments, between Robert Frost's woods and frozen lake, in the depths of the darkest nights of the year, she gave him light.
The Light of Love.
That is the gift we've been given, the gift we're obliged to share.
This week the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa are being celebrated. There will be a sharing of prayers, feasts, services, joy and good cheer, and where there is snow there will be snowmen, snowshoeing, and snowball fights.
Good Cheer except in those places where there are no candles, no lighted windows to beckon the sojourners, the hungry, the wayfarers, refugees, asylum seekers and persecuted and oppressed peoples who have traveled for weeks and months through darkness trying to find lights of hope and love.
There will be no room in the inn for neighbors living homeless on our streets as a "Bomb Cyclone" with snow threatens them.
There are no inns for persecuted Rohingya, Ukrainian and Yemeni peoples, no candles for LGBTQIA+ peoples, no shelter from injustice for peoples of color and minority communities.
No sanctuary or comfort for asylum seekers from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, and other nations fleeing oppression, danger and intolerable conditions in their homelands - seekers of light and love.
Let there be Light.
Whenever it snows I stand by my window and am transfixed: knowing that each flake is a flicker of light, each a message from beyond, a separate work of art, a connection, unreachable and unnamable yet unimaginably beautiful.
Robert Azzi, a photographer and writer who lives in Exeter, can be reached at theother.azzi@gmail.com. His columns are archived at theotherazzi.wordpress.com.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Azzi: Let there be light
