Candles and Lights...

At St. Paul's, as in some other churches that started Advent a week earlier than the liturgical calendar suggests, we have four candles burning on our Advent display. Each of these candles slices through the darkness, as the Fourth Gospel says, "...and the darkness has not overcome it."

I like candles. I probably got this appreciation from my father, who was always buying, making, and experimenting with candles. He wouldn't just burn them, but would "fuss" with them when they weren't burning brightly and consistently, a quirk of many a "fat" or "pillar" type candle. Especially at Christmas time, the Sterlings would have numerous candles burning throughout the house. (With my two brothers and me, it's a miracle we never burned the place down.)

Candles burn wax (or often today, soy) via a wick that allows it to be slowly digested. While the flame is rapid oxidation, the ancient technology of the candle slows this to a crawl. Originally, candles were made from beeswax, and the best ones today still are. So, each simple candlelight is a product of the science of rapid oxidation, the burning of wax bees create to house both their young and the honey they produce, and mediated by a wick typically made from woven cotton. Candlelight requires some sacrifices and science to exist, but it has defeated the darkness for millennia, lighting churches, schools, homes, and places of commerce. Few of humanity's advances would have been possible, were it not for those earliest days of candlelight.

The other lights of Christmas have evolved, beginning with the candle as well. Edison's invention brought forth strings of large, hot, colored lights that began to adorn Christmas trees and porch eaves. I'm old enough to remember the transition to "miniature" lights, and while these offered a much simpler and "twinkling" alternative to the earlier incandescents, they introduced a greater frequency and fervency of profanity to the decorating process. Still, this newer technology caused neighborhoods to explode with the colorful lights of Christmas, unless you were one of those "all white," or "all blue" people. Our family never had the economic resources to be the Griswolds, but my Dad did always decorate our front door, illuminating it with a huge spotlight. Leaving our house at night at Christmas time meant being blinded for about the first five minutes or so.

When we were kids, my Dad would load us into the car and we would drive all over Venango County looking at Christmas lights. I continued the tradition, doing this with our kids, and to be honest, Dara and I usually take an annual drive to do the same. Christmas lights are still magical to me. The beginning of my personal Christmas spirit begins when I see the first seasonal lights in the neighborhood appear.

Now that we have our own house, I have taken to decorating outdoors as well. We have a townhouse, which is three stories high, so I'm not climbing a 40-foot ladder to hang lights. So thankful am I for the "latest in 21st Century Christmas lighting technology," the laser Star Shower!

Candles and Christmas lights are one way we announce to a world needing the illumination, hope, and love of God, that Christ has come into the world to BE the light, and to shine that light in such a way that the darkness shall not overcome it! So, let the light shine! Whether it is the flickering flame of the ancient technology of the candle, or the shimmering, bright points of light from a laser Star Shower, let our lights speak of the eternal light of Christ, a light that shines in the hearts of all of the children of God far beyond the short days of the Christmas Season! And may the darkness never, ever, EVER overcome it! Merry Christmas, Yinz!