And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. -Genesis 1:2

I don't specifically have a problem with Jesus. I really don't.

But I went to the "winter solstice" celebration at the UU Church because I wasn't in the mood for an actual Jesus celebration, so finding it full of Jesus was a little jarring. Disappointing, even. Because I was there for the solstice - the delicate interplay of light and dark, the keeping of balance, the moment we celebrate the darkness.

Instead we got the above quote, and discussion about Jesus and hymns about the beauty of darkness that inexplicably felt the need to stop being about darkness as anything other than The Womb Of Jesus after the second verse.

Amber and I decided that if we were going to be there for Jesus, we might as well be all the way there for him. We decided to go to the Midnight Mass at the Catholic church down the block. The church itself is probably about a hundred and fifty years old, and I found myself staring at the Stations of the Cross. As Mass got underway, and we heard about how awesome and important it was that Jesus died, I thought about the grief narrative we've heard so much of lately.

We tell ourselves that it happened for a reason because that makes it easier to accept, but if we seek to do magic or understand the universe, we have to be willing to look with unvarnished eyes. If we aim to shape, we have to understand the forces we're shaping.

And we can't be so afraid of the dark that we can't get through all five verses of a song without it

Anyway, happy birthday, Josh!