Stars And Dark Nights

I could ask the darkness to hide me, or the light round me to turn into night, but even darkness is not dark for you. Psalm 139: 11, 12

Stars are distinct, fixed points. Navigators steer by them. Yet they twinkle. God’s standards are like stars. They are distinct, fixed sky marks by which all people can steer their lives. God’s standards are absolutes – truth, fairness, love, purity, unselfishness. Yet these are also qualities that bring a sparkle to life. The person with these qualities is transparent and glows.

Risen Christ we welcome you.
You are the flowering bough of creation.
From you cascades music like a million stars
Truth to cleanse a myriad souls.
A Celtic Eucharist The Community of Aidan and Hilda

We know that night is not dark with you, O Lord.
But a great deal of me is not yet one with you.
In the night the things I fear come to the surface.
The unacknowledged parts of my personality
poke through the shadows to haunt me.
It helps me to know that the blackness will lift
as surely as the dawn follows night.
But before that there is work to do.
Night has a purpose of its own.
My task is to acknowledge the shadows
and bring them to you who are the Morning Star.
You are author of light and dark.
The morning star would be nothing to us
without its prelude, the night.
So thank you, Lord, for the night.