Thursday night we gathered with school friends and family to listen to singing and violin playing, and then we ate (too many) sweets and dressed up for silly photos and made ornaments and collapsed into bed, exhausted. I was ready to post about day thirteen of our advent season with photos of school children, violins tucked under their chins.
And then Friday morning I couldn’t do it.
Last Sunday I heard the quote by Helen Keller, “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” I thought of this throughout the week, of just how true this is. Of how we seek to create security, to protect ourselves, to plan for the future. But security is not a natural thing. It is not a guarantee. And we are foolish to think that the walls and layers and boundaries we erect are sufficient; we are arrogant to think that we can have that much control. And we are destined to a life of nothing if we hold too fast to those illusions. Ah, but this daring adventure is so fraught with the deepest joys and the deepest pains.
These contradictions seem to be best illuminated in this season of candlelight. They are for our family, as we grieve and rejoice in this season. And I know that many of you have been forced to peel away those layers in order to dip your toes into the adventure once again.
I don’t know how to feel the pain that others feel in a way that helps, but I feel it in the light of a candle and the promise of remembrance and in the steadfast determination to continue along in this daring adventure as long and as far as it takes me.