Last night, I stood in the backyard looking at the moonlight shining on my house and the twinkle of the Christmas lights through the window. Their soft glow felt almost like a benediction of tiny, trembling prayers strung across branches and the banister. The Christmas tree lights still shimmer in the early January dusk, as if the world is reluctant to let go of this season of brightness.
It’s easy to say we put up lights for beauty, for celebration, or because the season demands it. Some might even dismiss them as commercial decoration. But I’ve come to believe there is something deeper happening, something ancient, instinctive, and profoundly hopeful. Even when we don’t name it, these lights express a quiet faith that light has already won. As John’s Gospel reminds us, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.”
Tonight, as I stepped outside, the moon was shining brilliantly among the stars—steady, luminous, almost defiant. It felt like a personal sign of hope for the new year, a reminder that even the smallest light can hold its ground against the vastness of night. If the moon can keep shining, so can we.
And yes, in a world shadowed by war, hunger, violence, and division, our little strings of lights can seem painfully insignificant. What difference can they possibly make? Yet the late Jesuit Michael Buckley once wrote that prayer is most needed just when it is deemed most useless. I think of that often. Maybe our lights are a kind of prayer—fragile, public, persistent. A way of saying, “We still believe. We still hope. We still trust that darkness does not get the final word.”
So as I unplug the lights for the season, I do so with gratitude. Their glow has carried me through Advent and Christmas, along with the memories I hold in my heart, and now they send me into the new year with a quiet commission: keep shining, however small the light may seem.
Smitten With Goodness 