ESR student Susan Flynn delivered the following message during ESR Worship on February 2, 2016:
We
are at the close of the first month of the year, a time where people make
resolutions to live their life better, access meaning quicker, clear away what
is unneeded or not working. We are just
beginning February. Even though it is
the shortest month, for most people I know, they can’t wait for it to be
over. The hanging-on-of-winter and the
pull of spring end up leaving many of us craving sunlight, with the impatience
of cabin fever. I have discovered I love
ESR for the same reasons I love winter.
Winter is a chance to bundle up, go inside, read a good book, reflect,
and act like a cat by finding the most comfortable place to fall asleep. Enjoy the contrasts, hot chocolate after
being out in the cold, candlelight in the evening.
Today I want to not talk about inner light but
our inner darkness. I grow weary of the
association of light being good, and the dark being bad and scary. We need the dark as much as we need the light;
they are contrasting but not opposites.
The Ying Yang symbol attempts to demonstrate that both light and dark
are a part of each other, connected by the same underlying essence. This writing explores how I have been
distracted by the light and given gifts through darkness.
