Monthly Archives: December 2025

Don’t Let the Light Go Out

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True confessions: I’m not a big fan of Hanukkah. I don’t relate to the military story, nor do I like the commercialism and all the attempts to make it a Jewish alternative to Christmas. But I do love lighting the candles and watching light emerge out of darkness.

Our family has a unique tradition of putting menorahs in the windows on all sides of the house and then going outside and circling the house to see them glowing as we pass by. Over the years, we have done this in all kinds of weather–blizzards, pouring rain, and clear but often bitter cold starry nights. Sometimes, the ground is bare. Other times, it’s been a frozen mess, even more treacherous in the sloping backyard. It was so bad two nights ago that we went to get the hiking poles out of the car. And I wondered, now that I’m older and threatened with osteoporosis, whether my stubbornness in completing this mission had morphed into stupidity. But I did it anyway, hanging onto porch beams and tree branches and feeding my fantasies of being an intrepid explorer.

It was totally worth it.

More true confessions: I’m not a big fan of holiday music. Handel’s Messiah is fine, but not the sappy Christmas songs that start playing on the radio and in department stores shortly after Halloween. Hanukkah songs don’t grab me either. No problem at all if I went through the rest of my life without ever hearing Jingle Bells or I Had a Little Dreidel again.

But one Hanukkah-inspired song has been tugging at my heart this year: Peter, Paul, and Mary’s Light One Candle. The chorus just keeps playing itself over and over in my head:

Don’t let the light go out. It’s lasted for so many years!
Don’t let the light go out. Let it shine through our love and our tears. 

It has been a very dark year. The lights of our democracy are struggling to flicker as the fog and darkness close in. Yet, there have been moments of brightness to hang onto–people coming together and saying no to tyranny and oppression, just as they did in Biblical times and all the times between then and now.

We can’t let these lights go out.

I’m so thankful for everyone who has spoken out against injustice in large and small ways–providing food to neighbors; raising their voices to protect vulnerable members of our community–immigrants, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+; speaking out against war and genocide; speaking out for protecting our planet. Together, we are the lights of Hanukkah!

The part of the Hanukkah story that has always resonated the most with me is how the one small jug pure oil they found to rededicate the Temple was only supposed to last for one day, but miraculously, it lasted for eight days (enough time to make new oil to replace it). It’s not that I really believe in miracles; it’s just a good reminder to not immediately default to the worst possible scenario.

And that’s what I’m trying to take with me as we go through Hanukkah, the solstice and into the new year: the ability to look for light, rather than for darkness. And to trust that even when things seem bleak, with a little bit of hope and patience, we can see light coming up over the horizon.

Happy Hanukkah! Happy Solstice! Merry Christmas! Happy Kwanza! Happy New Year! Happy Whatever Else You Might Celebrate! May we all be blessed with light!

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Art Saves Lives

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Next week I’ve been invited to participate in Mission Belonging’s annual solstice reading, offering poems that “that invite us to reflect on light and darkness in our lives” and also to say something about how Art Saves Lives, the backbone idea of their mission of “building bridges between veterans and citizens using the language of creative expression to promote empathy, foster understanding, and build authentic community.”

So, I’ve been thinking about how art saves lives. Especially for the core population of the Mission Belonging community: “service members, veterans, military family members, caregivers, and healthcare workers who have been gifted opportunities to use the arts as a tool for narration, self-care and socialization to offset their struggles with emotional and physical injuries caused by trauma.”

While I don’t check the box for any of these categories, I feel completely included as a civilian member of the Mission Belonging poetry workshop I attend every week, an absolute highlight I always look forward to. And I feel blessed and honored by the courage and vulnerability I consistently hear in the writing of my fellow workshop members. In so many ways, their art saves my life. It reminds me that being true to ourselves and then taking action from the core of these truths is one of our most powerful antidotes for dealing with these tumultuous times, whether they’re affecting us directly or indirectly as an individual, culture, country, and/or society. And writing–or any kind of art-making; writing just happens to be my main modality–can help us tunnel our way to this truth, which societal forces and life’s daily challenges tend to obscure.

I’m not sure whether art has directly saved my life. But when I think about the question, that tunnel image continues to come up. Maybe I can live some semblance of life in the darkness of the tunnel, but art is the way get to the truer, clearer, shining life of the light. Art also says that we matter: our stories, our ideas, the fluctuating weight of our feelings, the way we make sense of our often senseless world. And engaging in art with Mission Belonging (or in any supportive community context) assures us that whatever we need to express, there will be witnesses to hold it as the delicate, precious gift that it is. As is the creator of the art in question–also a delicate and precious gift.

Mission Belonging has continued to save many lives by opening more doors to the power of art, despite having lost a lot of government grant support this year. If you’re still working on year-end giving (or even if you’re not), I’d encourage you to consider a donation.

And my wish to you in this season of darkness: Find a way through the tunnel into the light.

Sun on Snow

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As I get close to my “blogging day,” I generally start thinking about what I might want to write about. This week, I’ve been contemplating a post about villainizing (what the administration is now doing to all Afghans and many other brown-skinned people after the National Guard shooting in DC), making soup in a storm (what I did yesterday) and what to do when you’re in the middle of sending out your work and you realize you absolutely hate every single word (also what I did yesterday and a common challenge I go through). I may write about each of these topics in future weeks, but when I actually sit down to write, I’m compelled to go with what’s in my gut at that very second. And right now, it’s the surprising and stunning delight of the radiant sun on the snow outside my window.

There is absolutely no landscape I like better than a snowy vista sparkling in the sun, whether I’m cozy and warm and looking out the window (as I am now) or skiing, walking or snowshoeing through winding trails with heavy snow-coated conifers, or even when I’m shoveling the driveway–as I was earlier this morning, enjoying the workout even as my partner and i struggled with our (temporarily) compromised respiratory systems to lift the heavy snow.

When it’s not sunny, snow loses most of its appeal for me. The angry sky can be evocative, but it’s also off-putting. As someone who’s sensitive to Seasonal Affective Disorder, I often feel like I’m trying to frantically gulp fleeting slivers of unsatisfying light. I did get out briefly in the storm yesterday because I knew I needed the air and to be closer to whatever diffuse light there was. It was unpleasant–though not undoable, the pellets and wind stinging our faces to the point where I had to keep my face covered head lowered to the ground.

But with sun on snow, there’s definitely a metaphor, and I’m hoping it transcends the clichéd (though useful) advice of being thankful for small things. Or the cliché of clouds having silver linings. What I think it brings me is a hopefulness, an expansiveness of possibility that I don’t sense on snowless sunny days or on cloudy snowy days. So, on this gorgeous morning, I’m determined to see my creative work in a new, sunnier light. And I’m also dedicating myself to the belief that we as a society won’t fall into the trap of villainizing propaganda and strive to embrace our commonalities rather than our otherness. I just read a very compelling post from the 50501 movement about that, and about the dangers of basking in one’s own privileged comfort–highly recommended, even though it’s sobering.

And there’s also a metaphor about making soup in a storm, though I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole right now. Other than to recommend making a big pot. That you can share with others.

Even Andre likes the sun on the snow, though he prefers to soak it up through the warm window.

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