bottle my tears...

"Thou hast kept count of my tossings; put thou my tears in thy bottle!" Psalms 56:8
Tossing and turning... night time exercise in bed... tears that come with holidays along with smiles... we are programmed, hard wired for both. So often, however, I find myself impatient with my tossing and turning as if it were some lack of faith or my inability to control my brain that produces this restlessness, this combination of joy and sorrow and worry.
Since childhood, night and darkness have felt comfortable for me. I have never been afraid of the dark. Perhaps my comfort comes from hours spent sitting on porches watching twilight and dusk creep into the yard with darkness gentling over us as we sat, rocked, talked and listened to the katydids and whipoorwills sing. Observing the coming of darkness was a daily ritual in the summer time that followed the early evening meal.
Winter time darkness had a different quality. Because of the cold and the early darkness, my sister and I would come in from outdoor play and sit by the huge old oil heater that dominated the landscape of our home. Light from the single light bulbs hanging down from the ceiling bathed us in a soft amber glow as we ate supper, did our homework and went to bed. As I lay in my little bed in the shed bedroom I shared with my sister, the winter night lights kept me company as I waited, waited, waited for sleep to come. Even as a child my tossings made sleep an often tardy visitor.
In my childhood there were very few "security lights", large malls bathed in night light, or down towns that glowed all night long with street lights. Darkness surrounded us and we were able to see and find the gifts offered when the sun went down. We heard mysterious rustlings of unknown life passing us by. The half light of the stars and moon softened the sharp outlines of the day and we spoke softly, moved slowly, and listened carefully. Our daytime energy was transformed into a night time peace if we would take the time to sit, wait, watch and listen.
The star light and moon light are constant reminders of my finitude and a comforting wonder at the magnitude of God’s creation. I live in the country so I can see the stars, sometimes the Milky Way. In our town the ambient light has erased all but the brightest stars from the sky. On my drive home from teaching last night I began to drive up the hill to our home and looked up. I stopped the car in the driveway, got out and looked up. What had been a dull sky in town was now filled with stars and planets reflecting their tiny shiny lights down on me. I don’t know much about the physics of stars or the facts about their creation. But I do know that in that moment, my tossings stilled and I marveled at the dark night polka dotted with mysterious star light. Tears were bottled. Hope... blessed hope... the first gift of Advent wrapped in star light and given to me last night on the way home to Sabbath Rest Farm. Thanks be to God for tossings and turnings and bottled tears that come in the blessed darkness to help us see beyond the dark to the star shining in the east... the Light that is coming to live among us, Emmanuel.