My heart is alive in Christmas, but a few weeks ago it wasn’t so. My first entry, Winter Solstice, recounts the darkness I struggled with this past year. I hope this won’t discourage you from reading it, for it ends in a hopeful place.

The following excerpt from “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas, captures the beauty in the darkness…

Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

For many weeks I was asleep in the darkness, afraid the night would never end. But it did. It ended when I looked out into the world and saw light in the windows of people who loved me, people who were able to hold me “close and holy” while I slept. Their light rekindled my faith and reminded me that I’m never alone in this world.

As 2010 comes to an end, and a New Year dawns, I’m imagining brilliant light streamingthrough my windows and back out into yours, so that together, wewill honor Christmas inour hearts the whole year long.