Luminaria Fidelis
Luminaria at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Albuquerque, NM - Christmas Eve 1950
“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”
— Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl
On the day before the darkest night of the year - at least in the northern hemisphere - it seems fitting to talk about Light.
So here we go….
Those who have listened to the first season of my podcast know I had a deep ambivalence (landing in hostility on occasion) about going to church as a pastor’s kid, but that was never true on Christmas Eve.
I loved church on Christmas Eve. Still do, though this year it won’t be in person for me and many others due to COVID.
As a kid and teen, that love of Christmas Eve services (especially the late-night candlelight service) manifested well before the first note of the first carol – it began as soon as the church came into view.
Because on Christmas Eve, our church did something wonderful.
It put out rows of Luminaria.
“Luminaria” - a beautiful name for something that is, quite simply, a lit candle in a paper bag.
It should be dangerous, but somehow isn’t. A miracle of the Divine or simple physics?
Maybe both.
Whatever the case, our church lined its walkways leading into the church and around its grounds with bag after bag, each held firm by several inches of sand, the votive candle (larger versions of tea lights) resting in the center.
As darkness fell, the ushers, with their carefully shielded tapers, worked their way down the lines of bags – each a few feet apart – and lit the candles. As a kid, I loved to watch and when I became one of the ushers, it was a thrill to light them myself. I didn’t entirely understand why at the time, but being a part of that ritual every year was remarkably moving for me, and vital to my growth in the years to come.
More on that in a bit, though.
First, we need some history (I know – shocker), just for larger context.
Luminaria are a global phenomena now, part of religious observances and light festivals at the darkest time of the year (at least in the more heavily populated northern hemisphere). But its modern roots are in New Mexico, where in the 1950s and 60s, they became a regular part of Advent / Christmas traditions among largely Latino Catholic populations.
Their further history is much murkier. In the 1500s, the first full century of Western exploration, colonization, and “Christianization” of the “new” world, Spanish explorers and merchants made regular stops and built settlements in the Philippine archipelago. As the Philippines had, centuries prior, been in contact with mainland China, it became a nexus where Western, indigenous, and Asian cultures and practices collided, amalgamated, then spread slowly across the world.
In our modern imaginations, we think mostly of the lucrative spice and slave trades that dominated this early version of “globalizing” economies and collisions of global cultures, but there were goods and traditions, too, that traveled far beyond their original borders that were adapted and assimilated into new places, eventually becoming new “traditions.”
Among these items were Chinese lanterns.
Centuries before the Spanish explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, arrived as part of the first circumnavigation of the globe, Chinese lanterns had been introduced – and assimilated – into Filipino culture. These lanterns, used for everything from decorations to celebrations to religious rituals, took on increased religious and cultural significance in the Philippines after Spanish colonization made the archipelago officially Catholic.
Over subsequent centuries of transoceanic exchange and the spread of Western power, these Chinese-Filipino-Catholic lanterns influenced the the development and use of ones elsewhere in the Spanish Empire, including South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico - the latter of which encompassed much of the the now-American Southwest and West Coast.
Which, of course, includes present-day New Mexico. Thus we come full circle, to the Christmas Eve services in Huntington Beach, California. I never learned how a Christmas Eve tradition from New Mexico among largely Latino Catholics made its way to a German Lutheran church in Southern California suburbia, but I remember it fondly, though I haven’t set foot in that church in twenty years.
So, what does this have to do with anything, other than it being a pretty holiday decoration?
Well, everything actually.
The answer isn’t “God,” at least not exclusively.
It introduced me to what it meant to be truly Human - which means God in us, among us, and outside us, however we experience or understand all that. It introduced me to the connectivity I now know and experience with myself, with those I love, and with divine forces and expressions that are so much larger than myself and that defy explanation (yet I and millions of others try anyway).
Lighting the Luminaria on Christmas Eve, I always felt anticipation. And, as far as Christian theology was concerned, I was supposed to feel that way – Advent and Christmas Eve are about anticipating the birth of the Messiah, the King of Kings. What I was anticipating was not exactly that, though, but what came with it – being emotionally and spiritually moved, an experience that I would feel deeply, that would fill me with feelings that I struggled with at all other times of the year – love, belonging, hope, peace, a sense that I was Enough in the World and in the eyes of a God whom I wanted to believe and feel loved me.
Christmas Eve was the only night when I felt the full confluence of my intellectual mind, my emotions, and my spirit. It was liberating and empowering all at once. And somehow, those Luminaria represented all of that to me.
Every year on Christmas Eve, I knew I would experience something that would shape me internally and inspire new thoughts to think, new ideas to consider, and hopefully, new insights into life and the universe and the Divine to contemplate and explore.
There was also an outward experience that occurred on Christmas Eve, because I knew I would see so many people from my life whom I loved, and loved me, all in one place. So much of what dominated our lives the rest of the year was put aside for a night of reflection, hope, joy, and togetherness. That, in turn, showed me that the same mysterious power moving me was doing the same with many others. There was comfort and peace in that, and I desperately needed as much of both as I could get.
As I lit the Luminaria, I’d see people arrive. I’d greet them, wish them a Merry Christmas, feel the sense of occasion – of specialness – from them all. Their families were together, some of them visiting or back home for a vacation or from school. I even liked seeing the people I didn’t usually like, and was even happier to see the people I loved but didn’t often see during the rest of the year. It was like everyone’s personal worlds were gathered together under the very best possible circumstances, all in the state of mind and spirit that I wished I - and all of humanity - could stay in all year.
There was a Oneness to those Christmas Eves, to that experience, among all who gathered. It was something I often didn’t feel in myself or on any other occasion.
And it all started with those Luminaria.
Generally, the Luminaria tradition is meant to light the path to Christ’s birth, or more accurately, to follow God’s invitation to it – the birthplace of the Light of the World; lighting the darkness, a metaphor for hope, safety, deliverance, finding one’s path – all introduced by the Luminaria. And once inside the church, there were more candles and lights – on the altar, lit on wreaths, all over. And at the end of the service, we all held them in our hands as “Silent Night” was sung by hundreds of people, somehow in perfect harmony in a familiar place, lit only by hundreds of small candles.
All of it, from Luminaria to “Silent Night,” provides the perfect metaphor for the power of both the Divine and the Human, each at their best, blending together to ignite and sustain hope in the darkness. Where we can See each other by shining our own lights in the darkness, to put forward the best essence of ourselves – openness about our need for love, connection, hope, and togetherness – and truly be open to new meanings, directions, and purpose. Where we lower our defenses and put aside our differences in the realization and experience – even for just that moment – that there is something far greater than each of us as individuals, but which also needs each one of us to be complete.
So the Luminaria and all that followed was never “just” a God moment for me, but a People moment - inseparable in the best sense of the word. And I’ve seen with my own eyes that such an experience can be accessible and true and connecting and healing for all people anywhere, no matter what they believe, face, or run from.
All of these words still don’t capture what I mean fully, but I knew it all to be true on an intrinsic, emotional, soul level from a young age even without words. I can close my eyes even now and feel the summation of those years on those Christmas Eves and be transported right back into that space where my thoughts, feelings, spirit, and connectivity met with God and others.
I simply cannot do the same with just the words I heard spoken in those services, even the ones from the excellent sermons that my dad always delivered on those nights (he was, and still is, an amazing minister who loves people As They Are). Maybe others can hold onto words that way, by allowing the Logos – the intellect of God in theology – to be their sole spiritual guide.
But not me, at least not to the same degree. This is crazy coming from a writer, but words have limits in their ability to describe what is, in the end, truly indescribable.
The words about the spiritual “Luminaria” do not, by themselves, engineer any emotional or spiritual movement for me. They inform it, I suppose, and shape it to a degree, but only in the way that having blurred vision gives us a sense of the reality in front of us.
And during my destructive years, that was a lot of my problem – I thought the blur was clarity, because I hadn’t let anything else help focus things more clearly. It’s like the time, a few years ago, that I was standing in line at the pharmacy and decided to kill time by trying on some reading glasses stocked on the endcap next to me - once I put them on, I saw just how blurry my vision had truly been. And I could not go back to pretending otherwise.
My intellect and experiences about spiritual matters, I’ve found, work much better as the culmination of a process beginning in a far deeper place, in my proverbial gut, that works its way through my heart to my head. The opposite is my brain trying to intellectualize everything, argue anything, debate something or nothing, or nothing that I turn into something, which then ends up confusing and frightening me to the point that I numb myself with anything or anyone to escape. I did that for years.
And doing so didn’t serve me well in the end. In fact, it almost killed me.
So now, in order to live and grow, it is the Intellect and the Experience of God – in me, in others around me, and by all that I sense around me – that moves my mountains.
It’s the Light.
It’s a combination that can reveal in us, and then forward from us, what Jesus of Nazareth called the “fruits of the spirit” (proof that the Light, that flame, shines within us) in his Sermon on the Mount - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
All things we could use a great deal of more these days - though we say that every year, don’t we?
Whatever our religious beliefs and practices, this is something elemental that connects and unites us all over space and time, regardless of culture or time period. And these days, it’s this dynamic that interests me far more than whatever religious, theological, political, or social debates we have – as important as those can be (which isn’t as often as we think).
“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”
— St. Francis of Assisi
This brings us back to Luminaria, to the Light that Leads. How it calls to us all, draws us towards it, and becomes something we want to give to others and back to the Divine - no matter who or where we are.
We see it in candlelight vigils after tragedies, as yearly remembrances, or to honor a movement, or to show solidarity with a cause.
We see it when we gather around campfires, where it becomes the literal focal point not only of conversation, but of the sight and soul as we take in the experience of the outdoors and what it is like to be “away from it all,” in nature.
We see it in houses of worship of all kinds in all nations - where candles are lit as prayers or offerings, or as the release of an evil, or as an appeal for divine help, or as a focal point for meditation and reflection.
We see it in symbols found in Divine Scriptures and in literature from all cultures and historical time periods, from the ancient civilizations that lit flames at night as an appeal for the sun to return the next morning to the flame of the Holy Spirit descending down from heaven to reside within Christian believers. My guess is you can think of many of these on your own, from your own beliefs and backgrounds.
We see it when we need to relax and unwind, when lighting candles reduces the harshness of artificial light and softens the hard emotional shells we put around ourselves each day as part and parcel of doing life (especially these days). That light connects us with a calmer internal Us and makes Around Us more accessible. And let’s be honest, it just makes taking a warm bath or sitting with a cup of tea that much better.
We see it in religious holidays and ceremonies at the end of the annual calendar, itself a time for remembering and reflecting – Diwali in Hinduism and Hanukkah in Judaism (both are Festivals of Light rooted in hope, remembrance, and prayer), Advent and Christmas in Christianity, Kwanzaa in Pan-African traditions, and more.
We see it in celebrations of all kinds – candles on birthday cakes for crying out loud, and festivals where thousands of lanterns are released into the night sky, inspiring everything from poetry to literature to Disney movies.
Light is universal and redemptive. We are all drawn towards it, regardless of where we live, what languages we speak, or what entities we worship. It’s a Light that becomes more than Life as it reveals it. It stretches beyond physical limits inside us to become Hope, Remembrance, a plea for help, a message of thanks, a focal point for contemplation, a personal and communal appeal for Peace on Earth and between peoples, a yearning for connection and communing with the Divine. This kind of Light quiets us and unites us – in the house of worship, in our own home, in the silent vigil, in the vastness of nature, in the times of immense grief or joy.
A friend of mine once shared with me how she experienced this on her first Christmas Eve after the death of her husband. Feeling alone and adrift, she went for a drive, and found herself at Midnight Mass in a small Catholic chapel, where the service was conducted entirely in Spanish. Even though she was amongst strangers, understanding only bits and pieces of the service, the comfort of the Light and the gathering of others within that Light, brought her peace and joy when little else could.
Because the Light itself is both part of us and far bigger than us.
The Light - whether literal or figurative - shows us what is real, while darkness hides it. Without acknowledging that Light within ourselves and in others, we simply scramble around in the dark, assuming that what we stumble across and grab onto is the sole truth of Things, or of people. At best, that is limiting and sad; at its worst, it’s destructive beyond measure.
The tragedy is that it’s far too easy to deny this Light, universal in its existence as part of the human soul, or turn it into a weapon to divide us. Doing so sets us individually, or in groups, apart from our Humanity in order to champion what we can then claim as exclusively “ours” - a political stance, a theological position, a personal conviction, a flawed notion of superiority.
The words to describe this Light and how it works differ in content and language, obviously, yet the Light still shoots through all those unique and distinct cultural and religious frameworks that, so often, become pretexts for division. As Anne Frank and St. Francis both understood well, the Light, however “small,” cannot be overcome by any amount of darkness. And as Marianne Williamson wrote in A Return to Love, “We do not get to the light through endless investigation of the darkness….The only way to the light is through entering the light.”
Because that Light is always there. Always lit.
That, by itself, is a massive gift from the Divine that resides within ourselves. So to deny that reality, that gift, is to deny our very nature, to divide us against ourselves individually, collectively, and from the Divine. We see all around us the cumulative result of that.
Maybe even in the best places in ourselves, then, to accept the reality that the Light shows each of us is Enough. Maybe don’t need all answers to all things, because what truly matters is already within us, ready to sustain us if we choose to trust it. It doesn’t have to be more, and those moments by themselves can change more within us – and then expand out into changing our own lives – than all the words we read, speak, and mull over in our minds alone. It also keeps us grounded in the reality of Now, rather than trying to read the tea leaves of what we dearly want to believe is Divine Will, or the Big Plan, for our lives - so much so that we can easily substitute our own “will” for it instead.
And that never ends well.
In response to the charge that I know is coming - that I am somehow saying all things are true, that all things are equal, I am not. The Light doesn’t give us answers for all the social, political, and religious questions that we so often ask and argue about and that do need addressing; instead, it gives us a basis for entirely new questions and priorities.
It creates entirely different conversations and points of focus.
It shows us the key baseline for our individual and collective existence - that we each matter, that we are each created unique, and are each capable of loving and being loved thoroughly by ourselves, others, and the Divine. And this is true no matter what we might think about the nature of the human condition, how cynical or optimistic we are, what our cultural or political or religious differences might be, or even the degree to which we accept or deny the very idea of that commonality. The truth is the truth when it’s revealed in the Light. What divides us is the degree to which we accept or deny its existence and what possibilities it opens up for us merely by standing in its glow.
At this time of year, literally billions of people recognize this and turn themselves towards that Light, pulled together by forces that they cannot fully describe but find they cannot define ourselves without.
And this year, it comes when darkness feels like it has encroached further on our lives than we ever believed possible.
Yet Luminaria, the Light that Leads, can be both the refuge from that encroachment and the means of fighting against it, as individuals and together in the communities we cherish. It doesn’t take a revelation to find it, or even a religious service. It’s hardwired into us.
“The only way to defeat the darkness is to become the light.”
- Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
.
It doesn’t take much to pick up that Light; a literal one will help get you there, one you can hold in your hand or set on your table. Or ones that can be arranged in a Menorah, or lined along pathways, or the ones we are used to seeing in worship, or the ones we light at home.
Lights that help us see literally or figuratively, externally or internally. When we connect with that inner Light, it ends up shining for others. And when we live in that Light, we recognize it in others - even if they themselves don’t.
What we see in that Light, changes us. Which is perhaps why it can be so frightening to step into it and see what it reveals to us about ourselves or about other people. We hate to admit we have been wrong or selfish or hurtful or hateful - to ourselves and to others. And that’s true for human beings everywhere.
But when we call up the courage to go there, it changes everything for the better.
Perhaps this is why the same root word in Luminaria is also the root for the word that best describes the coming together of the mind and the spirit in order to change us for the better:
Illumination.
It’s what I felt on all those Christmas Eve nights back then, and on every one since; a new level of emotional and spiritual experience that activates my mind to reach new levels of understanding and analysis - not the other way around. Fortunately, I now experience all that on many more days of the year.
The Light Illuminates both mind and soul and joins them, a truth that Lama Anagarika Govinda, the Buddhist poet and painter, described aptly:
All that is visible clings to the invisible
the audible to the inaudible
the tangible to the intangible
Perhaps the thinkable to the unthinkable
It also brings to mind one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, the 13th century Sufi mystic, Hafiz:
How did the rose ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of Light
Against its Being.
Otherwise, We all remain
Too Frightened
What other word - Illumination - could say and offer more in times such as these?
Or in any other time, really?
So this holiday season, when all of our usual traditions and expectations have been upended, perhaps it's time for us to look to our Light instead, give thanks to and for its Source, and consider how it can better connect us to ourselves and to others. Doing so may not solve the external problems we face, but it certainly provides a better starting point and compass for navigating ourselves through them.
And more often than not, that can be Enough each day.
This season has always been one of emotional ups and downs for me, and I know the same can be said by many others, for many reasons. But while the Joy of the season may be elusive or temporary, the Light of this and all other seasons can be, and is, constantly powerful. We don’t necessarily need Answers - we need Meaning. And Meaning always has value, even when it doesn’t arrive on the backs of Joy or Love.
It points the way forward - your very own Luminaria, every day.
May all your Lights glow bright in the days ahead. And should you find it difficult to see or follow, I get it.
But you’ll find your way - more light is on the horizon.
Maybe some lyrics from my Favorite Band Ever will provide you a valuable spark:
And if the terrors of the night
Come creeping into your days
And the world comes stealing children from your room
Guard your innocence from hallucination
And know that darkness always gathers around the light
If there is a light
We can't always see
And there is a world
We can't always be
If there is a dark
Now we shouldn't doubt
And there is a light
Don't let it go out
When the wind screams and shouts
And the sea is a dragon's tail
And the ship that stole your heart away
Sets sail
When all you've left is leaving
And all you got is grieving
And all you know is needing
If there is a light
We can't always see
And there is a world
We can't always be
If there is a dark
Now we shouldn't doubt
And there is a light
Don't let it go out
'Cause this is a song
A song for someone
Someone like me
I know the world is done
But you don't have to be
I've got a question for the child in you before it leaves
Are you tough enough to be kind?
Do you know your heart has its own mind?
Darkness gathers around the light
Hold on
Hold on
There is a light
We can't always see
If there is a world
We can't always be
If there is a dark
That we shouldn't doubt
And there is a light
Don't let it go out
And this is a song
A song for someone
This is a song
A song for someone
Someone like me
Chins Up, Everyone.
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Thanks for reading My Sunday Post. Here are important updates on some other parts of my week:
Soul Book of the Week: Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Book On My Nightstand: The Farm by Tom Rob Smith
Best Show I Watched: The Mandalorian - Season Two Finale (SPOILERS in link!)
Best Food I Cooked: Baked Lemon Chicken w/ Rosemary and Paprika ( w/ wilted garlic Spinach)
Strongest Ear Worm Song: Hatfield by Widespread Panic
Weirdest Dream of the Week: Having coffee w/ George Carlin’s ghost. He wouldn’t stop talking.
Longest Run / Ride of the Week: 7.7 mile run and 38 mile ride (Sunday)
Worst Fail of the Week: Losing grip on garbage bag while tossing it in dumpster = exploded bag
Biggest Laugh of the Week: Two kids bowling coffee cans down the supermarket aisles
Most Startling Human Encounter: Bicyclist wearing a mask, but no pants...
