to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept”. - Dylan Thomas, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.”
Jeff and I have a quiet and lovely custom that we bring to life each Advent, that sombre season of waiting, of anticipation, before Christmas. Each year, on an evening in December, we sit on the couch with the lights of the Christmas tree shining into the darkest days of the year, and we watch again “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” Thomas’ memory and gift to the season, recounting his days as a boy growing up in Wales, remembering those Christmas Days – when it always snowed.
Although we do not have snow here where Jeff and I live in Northern California, we have the longer nights, and every season, I note the changing light, the darker evenings that give way to the longer hours of light, beginning with the first day of winter – that day marked by the calendar.
Every evening though, when we go off to bed, I, too, say some words “to the close and holy darkness” before I sleep. My custom goes back to bedtime as a child, where my mother taught me to say the child’s prayer: ”Now I lay me down to sleep…” and when I said that prayer, I began the practice of adding prayers for those I loved. Later, I would learn to take my own cares to that holy darkness, praying – sometimes again and again – for relief from some worry, some troubling situation. A wise monk at a retreat encouraged me to pray – “for yourself,” he had said. And so I do.
I pray and pray until that moment – that holy moment, sometimes in the darkness, sometimes not – when I surrender to that holy moment, as it is, as it will be, as it has been. Freedom is there, and a kind of certainty.
When I settle in for the bedtime prayers – added to the prayers spoken at odd moments of the day – I remember that I am held by some magnificent, benevolent awareness, some living, breathing Self that is greater than me, and certainly greater than any of my own troubles. And when I remember that awareness, I know for a few moments that larger Self, always present, and so often forgotten.
The days are getting longer now, minute by minute, day by day, and moment by moment. Time passes so quickly, I often think. Time has passed so quickly, my life has passed so quickly, I think.
