Winter Solstice

I didn't know that our days are not counted by midnight to midnight, but are counted by solar noon, the mid-point of the day when the sun is at its daily peak in the sky. That means, if you live in the northern hemisphere, the shortest day of the year begins today, December 21, at 12:11pm and continues until tomorrow's "solar noon". Regardless of how you count the day or tell time, this day will give us the shortest amount of daylight ... about 9.5 hours. From this day onward, daylight will begin to increase. How very appropriate that we are in the midst of Advent's deepest time of darkness, and yet we know the Light is coming and will continue to grow brighter until That Day ... when darkness will be no longer. Oh, for That Day when the Noonday will be the only time we count ... the darkness of our sinfulness obliterated by the ever shining Light of the Son.

With that hope I share with you a blessing based on a poem by 

Macrina Wiederkehr

May our Loving God

etch into your heart a bit of heaven

to fill you with His shining Light.

May our Loving God

grant you enough lightning and storms

to invigorate the soil of your life.

May our Loving God

breathe on you the wind of His Spirit

to remind you

of who you are

and Whose you are

and to grow in you the green-ness of new life.

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Winter Solstice, Fractal Art by Vicky Brago-Mitchell