Lambent: Emerging from Darkness

Easter morning, we took the Christmas tree down...The light we'd yearned for, mustered and conjured during a seemingly endless, global tenebrae had arrived.

Our living room in Laguna Beach, with Easter lilies and the owl-themed Christmas tree—still lit—in the background, April 4, 2021.

Easter morning, we took the Christmas tree down.

It had been up since the day after Thanksgiving—four months and change. For our first (and please God, last) COVID Christmas, we put the tree up weeks earlier than usual, saying…