This past Monday I came home to find three jack-o’-lanterns on the steps to our home. When I asked about them, my four year old told me that there was a Daddy, a Mommy, and Baby and that the baby was going, “waaah.” He was eager to light the candles in them and we told him we could do that when the sun goes down but we’d have to blow the candles out when we go back inside. And so we did – just as it got dark.

On the second evening when he asked to light the jack-o’-lanterns again, we stood out there after the candles were lit and I felt that we needed to sing a song. So we sang, “This Little Light of Mine.” And it was a special moment. And last night we did it again and it got me thinking about how the darkness is coming earlier these days and we need to remember the important message of that song, of rituals like singing with candles, facing the darkness of night.

No matter how dark it gets outside, there is a light within each one of us that nothing can extinguish. And it got me thinking about the work of care that we are about here in this community, caring for one another in the midst of this pandemic. Each of us is holding a light, bearing a light for one another, for the residents in our midst. And so this morning I offer this blessing for you who bear the light from Jan Richardson.

Blessed are you who bear the light
by Jan Richardson

Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness
to its persistence
when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.

Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes—
your heart
a chapel,
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.

– Rev. Joel Eaton