Darkness and light

Advent 2. The season of waiting slips on towards Christmas, the lights spring up and around and inside people's houses and the man over the road has just, mercifully, switched off his flashing house and gone, I imagine, to bed. It's 11.30pm, and I should be doing the same. But ...

Working backwards, this is a photo of the remains of the sunset over the Island of Bute. I have a whole batch of wonderful colours from today's photos, taken when we started our walk up the south-facing Ardyne Farm road, but this matches my mood, with the darkness and light and, dusted with snow in the background, my beloved Arran hills no longer dimmed by the brightness of the low sun.

This morning at the Communion I sang a piece that we wrote almost 20 years ago. I clearly remember the words coming to me as we drove from the Lochranza - Claonaig ferry; I made Himself stop the car so that I could write them down and he composed the music - originally for SATB - shortly afterwards. Its first performance was by Cappella Nova in Glasgow, and we went to hear it; since then I've sung it only twice, though I know it appeared in several carol services in the Cathedral of The Isles. Today, of course, I was singing an amalgam of soprano and tenor parts, but it seemed to work and I found myself wishing we could do it again, with the full four parts.

The words really express my feelings about this time of year, feelings which are very much tied to where we live. Because I think of our ancestors, in the dark which must have seemed unending at this time of year, longing for light, I both sympathise with and dislike the premature illuminations that spring to life earlier each year. 

ADVENT INVOCATION

In the cold darkness
of the year’s turning
come to our hearts’ fire
kindle our yearning.

Veni Emmanuel

On the black storm-cloud
borne on the West winds
flame of love’s dawning
come now in splendour.

Now when our faith stirs
blind in earth’s slumber
breathe on its flowering
bring us to glory.

Veni Emmanuel.

©C.M.M. 07/01