O Holy Night, every night

Many years ago, when a dear friend of mine became ill, I took care of her one night. I seemed to lie awake all night, until the early hours of the morning when I fell asleep. I had so much doubt, so much worry. But as I was waking up in the morning, I heard these words: Hope. Love. Joy.  

These were more than words. They carried energy and power. And I knew to carry them in my heart.  Although I couldn’t with my mind, link the situation to these words. But I knew that they worked at a level deeper than the mind can grasp.

Six years later, these words became true. And the mystery of how light is born in the darkness, became a reality. It is, to me, connected with imagination. For imagination comes from the soul. It is the opener. So this is the way a woman holds light in her everyday life. Not separate. But in the ordinary things, she holds a light in her heart.

I think now of a woman, Carrie, who had been homeless for six months. She came to our circle for the quiet, she said. After meditation, I suggested that the women write freely, starting with the words, once there was a garden. She wrote:

Once there was a garden with rows and rows of plants, flowers, and on the edges, trees. Once there was a garden, plants with food, people came to pick, where people met, told stories and fell in love. The trees stood tall with their roots firmly planted, and the plants standing firm, bearing food. Flowers bloomed as wildlife lived near. The squirrels living in the tall trees, bees getting pollen from the flowers on bright sunny days. Once there was a garden filled with life, love and compassion that can still be here to this day.

And when Carrie read this out aloud to the group, it felt so alive, so filled with possibility. And this is what I have seen from the women, but also experience in my life, the need to live in this way.

Imagine. I recently heard this word in the middle of the night. I held it inwardly, without knowing what it could mean. And I watched how it seemed to work on my mind, opening the gates of possibility, just as Carrie’s little story had done.

This is a mystery, repeated again and again, in our hearts. From possibility, comes change. Each of us a Mary, holding a light in the darkness.