It’s been a longish week, as weeks in January are wont to be.
There have been the usual dark, early morning bike rides and bus journeys to get to work. So, no change there.
But yesterday my boy Silas went off on the travels he’s been planning forever, and although he’s happy, I won’t see him until I know not when, so I am sad.
My partner Susie has had Covid and while she’s testing positive, we are avoiding each other in the house, wearing masks, living in parallel but not quite together.
It all feels rather grey and gloomy.
The other day, I went to the cellar, to fetch a spanner but also to hide for a bit, so I closed the door and turned out the light.
I’m not exactly sure why I was seeking the darkness – perhaps as a change from the uniform, grey gloom – but I was.
Thing is, our cellar isn’t really a cellar. It’s just a space under the hall, so when I turned off the light it wasn’t really dark. The light came in through the cracks between the floorboards.
It wasn’t a lot of light, though. I could see it, but it was still dark, so when I looked up to where it peeped through, I banged my head on a joist.
So, I turned the light back on.
This weekend, Christians all over the world will be thinking about light and celebrating the light that we believe Jesus brings into the world.
We call this celebration Candlemas and for centuries it’s when people have blessed the candles they need to make light for the rest of the year.
Because although we know that light will always come, as Spring follows winter, it’s no good just to sit in the darkness while we’re waiting. When it’s dark we have to invite the light in.
It’s why I look to my friends when things get difficult. It’s why I go to watch Dulwich Hamlet, why I call my Mum, why I listen to Bach and the Beatles.
Because those are the lights I can switch on. And they’re what stop me banging my head when the world feels like a cellar where the cracks between the floorboards are just too small.
The image at the top was taken in the cave at the east end of Pednvounder beach in Cornwall.