This week, I returned from a long-awaited vacation to Alaska. I marveled at the bigger than life mountains with the gigantic trees, two foot tall dandelions, and skunk cabbage with four foot long leaves – all soaking up the twenty hours a day of sunshine.

LIGHT.

ALL DAY LONG.

And all night too.

One night at 10:30 p.m., people were still fishing for salmon at 10:30 p.m. in the river just outside our hotel room window. Still not quite sunset. Smiles and laughter and busyness celebrated LIGHT – and life.

While there, we heard stories of the long, harsh night of winter – three hours of dusk – and then blackness. Headlamps illuminate just the few feet in front of you.

Despite the darkness, person after person described leaving everything behind to move there from across the country – across the world – to become one with the night and the promise of day.

Life is hard in darkness, but magnificent are the rewards of enduring the cold, bitter night – bigger than life beauty. Warmth. Sunshine.

DAY.

And after the blackness,

Let there be…

LIGHT.