Let us hold a quiet moment now as we light our Chalice.
Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal on February 2nd, 1841:
"A child asked his father what became of the old moon, and he said it was cut up into stars."
Consider the light. Light out of darkness. Light begets light.
The light which the God of Genesis brought out of the darkness is the light that became our world.
Our sun's light reflecting off our moon is eclipsed but then returns to us as our earth quietly moves out of its way.
In our current scientific understanding of the origins of the universe,
the light-of-everything that exploded from not-quite-nothing
is the light that became the maybe-everything of which we are barely a part.
This light we now kindle here will become a light for each of us to carry forth,
as we find our way through the shadows on our path.
Let us be grateful for the light in our lives,
even as we honor the dark from which the light came.