New parents know something about waking through the night. Some start to fear the nights because they become exhausting and seem to stretch for ever. But new parents are not the only ones who suffer sleeplessness. Many people seem to have trouble getting peacefully through the night.
Still, waking at night need not only be exhausting. Traditions know the night as a transitional space of Divine birthing. Indeed, on any spiritual pilgrimage transitional spaces are part of the journey. We walk through the dark of the night, waiting for dawn to break in. Thus, religious traditions incorporate thresholds into the rhythm of life, e.g. we celebrate Christmas Eve and Easter night. God comes to us in the night, in the middle of our journey through the dark.
Humans are not nocturnal animals. For us, night is the space between days. Like a door or hallway is the space between rooms, night stands as a transitional space. We step into it and the old is gone but the new is not quite there yet. Life is in suspension.
Today, at the Eve of the new year, when the old is not yet gone and the new is not yet visible, we approach another important night marking the middle of the 12 Days of Christmas. Just as the holy night reminds us of the sacred moment, when light breaks into the dark, the turn of the year invites us into another in-between space of waiting and new beginnings.
Many years ago, Chuck and I learned from a Benedictine monk to take doors seriously. We usually walk heedlessly through them, not recognizing the transition, honoring neither the departure nor the arrival. But one can, even without stopping, be present to the transition. A short pause allows us space to consider it.
Approaching New Years Eve we invite you to take some time to pause at the threshold once more. You might honor the transition to the night by taking in the last sunset of the year or watching the light fade from the clouds. Or you could light a candle which will burn from the old year into the new. Or find some time before (or after) the party to collect the year, honoring your grief and your gratitude. Or you might find it helpful to meditate for a bit on the photo above I made in a hallway in a monastery in Germany.
The prayer By gentle powers wonderfully sheltered Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote short before his martyrdom has often served us as a threshold to and a container for our grief, gratitude, and consolation. You can find the text of the poem and my meditation on it here. I invite you to read that text or listen to the song as a part of your transition through the night.
And now, at this important threshold, we greet you one last time this year with a blessing.
A Blessing for you at the turn of the year
May this night between the years
embrace you warmly
with what you carry
and what you wish to leave behind.
May this night
welcome and guide you
slowly
patiently
forgivingly
to new beginnings.
May it be so. Amen.
AF
