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Monday, December 21, was the Winter Solstice.
Each day now the light will slowly begin to arrive earlier and linger longer.
And, oh, we are desperate for light now on this planet!
We struggle to survive a pandemic that is likely to get worse, even as new vaccines become available. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Women have had to give up careers they loved in order to take care of their children, who can’t go to school. Children are challenged to learn online. People are being evicted from their homes because they can’t pay the rent or mortgage. Many have lost loved ones and have to endure the long darkness of grief alone.
Bring light!
Every day, throughout the day, the world offers invitations to do something beautiful and generous. Help a stranger. Feed the birds. Call a friend and tell them how much they mean to you. Hang Christmas ornaments on a dead tree. Bake cookies for someone who’s having a hard time. Donate a little money to a friend who’s sick. Look for the bare and apparently lifeless trees and hang out with them, remembering that they are contain a surge of new, green life that will burgeon in spring.
We cannot bring back the dead, but we can bring back what is bleak and lifeless in ourselves, and our own light illuminates the lives of others.

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Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places.