This time of year often brings my faith journey into new perspective—or shows me where I’m still stuck. Usually both. Today I want to share how this season of light has opened me again to hope, imagination, and trust, even when the world offers plenty of reasons to doubt.

Last Saturday, I took my six-year-old granddaughter to Imagination Stage to see The Snowman and the Snow Dog. Before the show, a large quote on the theater wall from Margaret Mead caught my eye:

“We must feed the imagination, trust the curiosity of children and youth… We adults must provide space, time, and situations in which they can experiment with an ‘as-if’ world before they settle into the real world.”

The play—centered on a young boy grieving his dad and his dog—was simple, tender, and full of imagination. The children seemed to follow it easily. I suspect we adults, with our overthinking and insistence on reason, were the ones who struggled. My granddaughter said little afterward, but I could tell she felt the sadness as well as the hope. I could tell she felt the boy’s sadness deeply, and she seemed unsure how to leave that sadness behind when the story resolved.

That experience, and Mead’s words, reminded me that creativity—and faith—always require a leap beyond logic. Writing even a single sentence is an act of trust: that something meaningful will emerge for me, and perhaps for you.

For many years, I resisted the slowing down of December, the rituals, the familiar stories. As a Christian who has studied a lot about my faith, I found it hard to enter the mystery and wonder of Christmas.

This year two events nudged me forward.

First, a priest friend from my seminary days visited our church and left a small booklet on the Eucharist. I hadn’t read about communion in years—it felt like an “old church” topic. But something told me to take it home.

The reflections, drawn from the writings of Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, Michigan were simple, clear, and quietly profound. Each morning’s reading invited me to see again how Jesus becomes food for our deepest hunger and how the divine meets us in ordinary bread and human longing.

Second, at a weekend retreat soon afterward, I realized how off-balance I’d been—physically from cataract surgery and dental work, and spiritually from trying to juggle volunteer commitments, family life, and the realities of aging. I saw, uncomfortably, how much my fear of being labeled a “Jesus freak” or being confused with Christian Nationalism had kept me silent about Jesus and more comfortable speaking of God or Spirit.

Those insights were a kind of grace. I could see that by shielding part of my faith from public view, I was also shielding my own heart from a deeper relationship with Jesus.

This has made the season different for me—gentler, more joyful. I’m remembering that all faith involves mystery, imagination, and trusting more than we can prove. When I let myself enter that mystery instead of resisting it, I find renewed peace.

I’ve lived both with faith and without it. I know which life brings more joy.
Faith takes many forms, but imagination helps all of them grow.

Blessings on your own explorations of mystery, curiosity, and the light that finds us when we dare to believe.