December 16th

Hope isn’t always a constant light. Not a floodlight. Not something you can switch on. Not even the faithful flowing of sunrise and sunset, or comforting glow of a nightlight. Not always the flicking constancy of candlelight or the surprisingly bright moon. Sometimes it is, all of these. But, not always, not reliably. Not a light at our fingertips just like that.

Last night these little, crowded, mismatched, glorious, gentle, joyful lights, bore hope.

The way they were placed there only to bring joy. Multiple chandeliers, glitter balls, disco lights, fairy lights, glittering stars. All casting chaotic light everywhere you looked.

And all moving. All shifting, unclear where they were coming from or what light was what. Non-straightforward hope held in this mishmash of Christmas lights. Hope in the hands that rigged them and picked them out and added so many to the ceiling. Hope in the thought that they would bring joy, would bring people together.

Hope in the endless possibilities of unique shapes they make and ways they combine and collide and cascade across an old-fashioned building that has held hope in a community for years and years and years. Hope in each of the people who came out on a damp winter night to find company, music, drinks, give something, get something. Hope in the choosing of festive jumpers and red dresses and Christmas hats. Little bits of hope carried by each person chaotically filling a room like these lights.

I missed saying something about Gaudate Sunday. The joy Sunday. The pink Sunday. But last night I took a picture of these joyful lights and ceiling turned pink. Heard music made by voices of people who chose to spend a Monday evening carrying hope, seeking out hope, in songs that might bring joy, notes that might ring true. Pilgrimaging to a made-beautiful room in an old community centre, to sing, to hopefully find others, to hopefully tune into something together.

And Robin slept through the songs or stretched out in hope to see someone she loved or sat in the shadows quietly and then gently crept her way to meet people, her wriggling body filled with hope that she might find welcome, and bearing hope to those who who were looking for a soft heart or soft fur to fill their hands with a moment of hope, like the lights filled my eyes.

[Image description: from left to right, a chandelier glowing pink; moving lights casting coloured shapes on a ceiling, green, yellow, pink; a glitter ball and hanging sparkly stars; festoons of fairylights. In the background, magnolia paint and pipes.]