Love and the Glowing End

Finishing the Advent series has stalled, because, what, really, am I going to say about love?

I've long ago abandoned novelty ("Hey! it turns out that I wasn't first person to use "roots" figuratively and literally at the same time!") but I still kept wanting to avoid off-puttingly sappy and plain stupid.  And love is just so . . . well, what am I going to say about love?

Joyful in the short day darkness

The actual fourth Sunday of advent was a dark day in Colorado and I felt overbrimming with joy as I went sledding with Dianthus, Aster, and the Mister.  Two days later I introduced my sons to the wonders of twirling fire as we celebrated friendship and the returning of the sun after the solstice. I thought about writing, "I love sharing my fun side with my family," which would reveal nothing beyond stating the obvious, and then realized I didn't even take pictures of the fire for glowing documentation.

December 20, 2016

So I stalled on writing about love.  Which led me to stall on ending glow year, even though I selected the new theme back at the end of December, because somehow I've committed to finishing something before I finish something else before I start something new (oh, how I wish I could do that in my professional life!).

Then, this past weekend, I decided that glow year must end, as the lunar new year started Monday and it is high time to start bird year.

At church  Sunday (Transfiguration Sunday, in addition to Superbowl Sunday and Scout Sunday), the Mister read a passage from Exodus about the radiant face of Moses.  And our pastor read from Luke about Jesus's face becoming as bright as lightning.  "Radiant", to the point of causing pain to others, was used many times. God apparently makes people SHINE.  Which I took as a sign.  Except I didn't know for what.

Jacket $4 thrift store find 11 years after
dress purchased used on e-bay

Then the 5K on campus that I've "run" the last four years, the one that kicked off my glowing for health resolution is support of my friend radiant with chemotherapy, announced a new name.  This year it is a "Glow 5K"  I'm not sure what that means, either, except that I am meant to be running it.  And I found a designer silk suit at the thrift store so I have enough fabric to alter my old ball gown, so the Mister and I are off to sparkle (which, you may recall, I resolved [and failed] to do in 2014) at adult prom on Saturday night.  And as we were receiving our ashes this evening, thinking about death and ends and all the ways that we have gone astray, our pastor was preaching about hope and joy and increasing light.

And it occurred to me that that's what I have to say: that the glowing never ends.

Darkness is real.  If you are stuck in the darkness, please tell me how to help you light a candle.  Because the light of love is real as well.

Love makes us glow.  God makes us glow.  God is love.

We are made of ashes and to ashes we will return.  As ashes we are stardust.  And when we treat each other with love, the star shines through.  And it is enough.  Let's glow in God's love and love of each other.  Let us be stars in the our time between dust piles.