Each year in late December, the celebration of Yule marks the winter solstice: the shortest day of the year, followed by the return of the sun.  This holiday recognizes the endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.  This Sunday, we explore the wisdom and beauty in the dark and envision the renewal that awaits us.  

This holiday season can serve as a source of anticipation and wonder, an invitation to open to joy. Joy is always present, although it is sometimes obscured or forgotten, buried beneath the surface. Yet when we find it, it serves as a medium for healing. This Sunday, we are reminded of this invitation, both to delight in the magical and awe-filled, and, perhaps even more importantly, to revel in those ordinary joys – embracing the holy ordinary.

Today we lift up a story of a flame that persisted through oppression, allowing a people of faith to persevere.  This is a story of freedom, faith, and hope, as demonstrated through a miracle.  While others sought to break the Jewish people down, their faith and their sacred prevailed. This Sunday, we explore the wisdom this story offers us in these turbulent…