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 Excerpts
from Starlight
PREFACE
"Light shining in the darkness" is a symbol rooted in both Christian
faith and seasonal change. On the one hand, it plays upon scriptural references
connected with the birth of Christ . . . However, in popular imagination,
the light shining in the darkness is the star that leads the Magi to the
Christ. The way to Christmas revelation is illumined by starlight.
These starlight themes a transcendent
presence that provokes us into hope, our always-limited but ever-refining
consciousness, and the cultivation of spiritual sightoccur again
and again in the following chapters. The chapters are not neatly divided
units nor is there a single sustained argument that proceeds from chapter
to chapter. They are freewheeling explorations of the spiritual life through
the images, stories, and ideas associated with Christmas. This loose method
seems appropriate both to the actual rhythms of the spiritual life and the
uncontrollable flow of Christmas.
All neat organizations of the spiritual life are hindsight
creations. After events, activities, and people have provoked our spirits
to journey to another place, we look back and sort out the chaos into some
form of orderly progression. We may even dare to talk about providence ("At
the time I didn't think so, but now I see it was all for the good").
But we should notice that providential interpretations are usually backward
looks from a safe place. When events, activities, and people are actually
happening, the spiritual life has the "feel" of an insight here,
a quandary there, and a sense of being on the verge of something everywhere.
That is how it is with these chapters. There is an insight
here, a quandary there, and a "Don't you think there is something to
this" question everywhere. The reflections are not a coordinated picture
of the spiritual life; they are splashes of paint on a canvas. They are
at that stage before the mind imposes a grand, overarching scheme. Undoubtedly,
this is because I have not thought them through all the way. But it is also
because in the spiritual life the mind is often the last to know.
There is a similar freewheeling character to the feast
of Christmas. It usually asserts itself when we attempt to organize Christmas.
All of us, at one time or another, have cried to plot the flow of Christmas,
got everything perfectly in placeand then have come
down with the flu. The message, which we never quite get, is that the spirit
of Christmas does not submit to control. It is a sled "adhering speed
down a steep hill. Enjoy the ride, but do not oversteer it. The feast gives
itself to chose willing to indulge in a four-hour meal, to luxuriate into
a labyrinthine story, to rummage ehrough an attic of ideas, to turn an image
like a diamond and marvel at each slant of light.
Christmas is best when we relax and let it happen beyond
our expectations. The reflections in ehese chapters try to let things happen.
They bring together Bible, tradition, experience, culture, reason, and imagination,
but not in a systematic way. Each element makes a surprise appearance, says
more than was in the script, and then wanders off stage. Undoubtedly, this
is because the author's mind is, as Buddhist thought picturesquely puts
it, a "drunken monkey." But it is also because Christmas is a
mighty mess of Bible, tradition, experience, culture, reason, and imagination,
and it is more fun to contribute to the mess clan to try to straighten it
out.
Chapter 1, "The Soul and the Season," explores
the reality of soul in terms of the doubt consciousness of God and the world.
These are the two eyes of the soul, the right eye gazing on God and the
left eye on creation. The Christmas season cries to focus these two eyes.
Through images, stories, customs, and ideas we gradually refine our understandings
of ourselves, our world, and the divine source.
Chapter 2, "Strange Stories, Spiritual Sight, and
Blurred Guides," begins with a strange Christmas story and suggests
that its strangeness is the key to its power The many strange stories that
surround Christmas try to jolt us out of ordinary physical consciousness
and encourage us to see from a spiritual viewpoint. They move us along an
outer and inner path of spiritual realization. However, the stories need
interpreters, guides who will show us the reason for the strangeness and
suggest the hidden meaning of the tale. An apology is made for blurred guides.
Chapter 3, "Waking Up on Christmas Morning,"
begins with another strange story, a mythic tale of Adam and Eve, filled
with evocative symbols and biblical associations. Adam and Eve are on a
journey of awakening. We accompany them, making our own their pleasures
and dissatisfactions, their searches and discoveries. Eventually, they find
a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. But who is really
found depends on who is looking.
Chapter 4, "Giving Birth to Christ," begins
with a story about the struggle of light to come into the world. The question
is how do we coincide with our spiritual center so that our actions, no
matter how great or how small, bring love into the world. The answer is
hidden in the Christmas story of Mary and Gabriel, the virgin and the angel.
Their conversation is a Lamaze class for believers. It shows us how to give
birth to Christ.
Chapter 5, "The Magi Ride Again," traces the
Magi story throughout Christian history. The original tale is only twelve
versa in the Gospel of Matthew, but Christian imagination has turned it
into volumes. The Magi have become the symbolic bearers of many spiritual
insights. Poets, storytellers, and spiritual writers have explored the potential
in the unobtrusive comment, "They went home by another route"
(Mt. 2:12). We can go home that way too, if we follow them.
Chapter 6, "The Close and Holy Darkness,"
deals with the shadow side of Christmas. Christmas rhetoric has said that
the child is born to die, and at Christmas our eyes mist with memories of
the dead. But perhaps it is not as we think it is? Perhaps what is lost
in one way is present in another? Perhaps Christmas night is not an abyss
of blackness, but a dose and holy darkness? Love may reach farther than
we know.
Chapter 7, "The Man Who Was a Lamp," is a
long poem about that strong Advent figure, John the Baptist. He has a reputation
for being able to introduce us to Christ. He can show us the way to the
cave of Christmas. He is not as adventuresome as the Magi or as dutiful
as the shepherds. But the Johannine Jesus called him a "lamp shining
brightly." High praise from the Light of the World.
Copyright 1992 by John Shea. Posted with permission.
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