It's not often Christmas Eve and the new moon coincide. Tonight they do.
Much of my life I'd supposed the new moon was the first little bit of visible crescent. But a new moon is a 'no' moon. The new moon is the moon we cannot see. Or at least can't see in our electric world. On a clear night in the ancient world earth-shine faintly illuminated the 'no' moon.
The new moon is when the moon is between earth and sun. The 'new' moon is when what we call the 'dark side of the moon' is completely bright, completely lit up--in the half we never see from Earth.
The Welsh priest and poet R. S. Thomas writes about new-moon-darkness in 'The Moon in Lleyn'.
Thomas was vicar of several small parishes in Wales just at the time when churches were 'dying' all across his country.
It was a dark time. It is a wonderful poem.
The Moon in Lleyn
The last quarter of the moon
of Jesus gives way
to the dark; the serpent
digests the egg. Here
on my knees in this stone
church, that is full only
of the silent congregation
of shadows and the sea's
sound, it is easy to believe
Yeats was right. Just as though
choirs had not sung, shells
have swallowed them; the tide laps
at the Bible; the bell fetches
no people to the brittle miracle
of bread. The sand is waiting
for the running back of the grains
in the wall into its blond
glass. Religion is over, and
what will emerge from the body
of the new moon, no one
can say.
But a voice sounds
in my ear. Why so fast,
mortal? These very seas
are baptized. The parish
has a saint's name time cannot
unfrock. In cities that
have outgrown their promise people
are becoming pilgrims
again, if not to this place,
then to the recreation of it
in their own spirits. You must remain
kneeling. Even as this moon
making its way through the earth's
cumbersome shadow, prayer, too,
has its phases.
Our churches face dark-of-the-moon challenges too. Christmas Eve is a wonderfully pregnant time to explore these challenges.
Hopes and fears of all the years are met tonight. On dark streets we'll get a chance to contemplate everlasting light.
People are always becoming pilgrims again. Always and always. The great star that lights up our path tonight leads to something.
And from tonight forward over the next 28 days, the moon will only grow brighter. Prayer has its phases--as does life.
