Harvard Divinity School

From the Unitarian Universalist Tradition | “Dark and Light,” by Jacqui James Read by Alex Jensen, MDiv III Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s TRANSCRIPT: Blackmail, blacklist, black mark. Black Monday, black mood, black-hearted. Black plague, black mass, black market. Good guys wear white, bad guys wear black. We fear black cats, and the Dark Continent. But it’s okay to tell a white lie lily-white hands are coveted, it’s great to be pure as the driven snow. Angels and brides wear white. Devil’s food cake is chocolate; angel’s food cake is white! We shape language and we are shaped by it. In our culture, white is esteemed. It is heavenly, sun-like, clean, pure, immaculate, innocent, and beautiful. At the same time, black is evil, wicked, gloomy, depressing, angry, sullen. Ascribing negative and positive values to black and white enhances the institutionalization of this culture’s racism. Let us acknowledge the negative connotations of whiteness. White things can be soft, vulnerable, pallid, and ashen. Light can be blinding, bleaching, enervating. Conversely, we must acknowledge that darkness has a redemptive character, that in darkness there is power and beauty. The dark nurtured and protected us before our birth. Welcome darkness. Don’t be afraid of it or deny it. Darkness brings relief from the blinding sun, from scorching heat, from exhausting labor. Night signals permission to rest, to be with our loved ones, to conceive new life, to search our hearts, to remember our dreams. The dark of winter is a time of hibernation. Seeds grow in the dark, fertile earth. The words black and dark don’t need to be destroyed or ignored, only balanced and reclaimed in their wholeness. The words white and light don’t need to be destroyed or ignored, only balanced and reclaimed in their wholeness. Imagine a world that had only light—or dark. We need both. Dark and light. Light and dark. — from Been in the Storm So Long (2015) eds. Mark Morrison-Reed and Jacqui James. https://www.uua.org/worship/words/meditation/dark-and-light

Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s Transcript: Good evening and welcome to this year’s Seasons of Light celebration at Harvard Divinity School. My name is Kerry Maloney, and I am the Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life here at HDS. Seasons of Light is our campus’ annual ritual to honor the unity of holy darkness and holy light in the world’s religious traditions that are represented on our campus. While we usually enjoy the deep intimacy of one another’s presence for this event, jammed into our largest sacred space on campus to share music, prayers, chants, and texts, this year, of course, due to the pandemic, we are scattered across the United States and around the globe. Nevertheless, we believe the power of our spiritual traditions enables us to transcend time and space to be truly together for this holy occasion—in a year when our unity and interdependence may never have mattered more. As we begin tonight, I invite you, if you haven’t yet had the chance to do so and if you are able, to dim the lights in the room from which you are joining us, perhaps lighting a candle or two to help you see. Also, please have near you if you can one unlit candle and the means by which to light it later in our ritual. Closed captioning is available throughout our gathering tonight. Please turn it on at the bottom of your screen if you would like to use it. I’m joining you tonight from Eastern Massachusetts, not far from the Harvard campus, where we are on the homelands of the Mashpee Wampanoag, Aquinnah Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Massachusett tribal nations. The Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness believes that land acknowledgment is a “meaningful step toward honoring the truth, making the invisible visible, and correcting the American stories that erase indigenous people’s tribal history and culture. Land Acknowledgements demonstrate a commitment to counter the Doctrine of Discovery and to undo the ongoing legacy of settler colonialism.” We acknowledge the painful history of genocide, stolen land, and forced removal; and we honor and stand in solidarity with the diverse indigenous communities who continue to have a connection with this land. Friends, we have gathered tonight in the midst of a harrowing year—political treachery and chaos, a long-overdue racial reckoning, a global pandemic that has stolen the lives of hundreds of thousands and shattered the security, hopes, and well-being of countless more. It is important that we are together tonight to pray and to meditate; to make beautiful music and to hear sacred texts; to rest in the deep, holy darkness; to kindle flames of hope and resistance; and to act together in solidarity with the marginalized. As we begin now, look around this digital room at your companions, your spiritual siblings far and near, and know you are not alone. Take a deep breath, and then another, and bless your capacity to breathe in a world where that ability cannot be taken for granted, not even one breath, especially by those who are black and brown. And center yourself in stillness for our brief time together. Let us feast on the darkness. Let us rejoice in the light.

Communal Invocation | Adapted from the poetry of Hafiz Read by Kerry A. Maloney and Xavier I. Sayeed, MTS I Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s TRANSCRIPT: One:Light will someday split you open even if your life is now a cage, All:for a divine seed, the crown of destiny, is hidden and sown on an ancient, fertile plain you hold the title to. One:Love will surely burst you wide open into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy All:even if your mind is now a spoiled mule. One:A life-giving radiance will come; the Friend's gratuity will come. All:O look again within yourself, for I know you were once the elegant host to all the marvels in creation. One:From a sacred crevice in your body a bow rises each night and shoots your soul into God. All:Behold the Beautiful Drunk Singing One from the lunar vantage point of love. One:That One is conducting the affairs of the whole universe All:while throwing wild parties in a tree house—on a limb in your heart.

Shining, in the Gathering Light | “Holy Darkness” by Dan Schutte HDS Choir with Xavier Sayeed, MTS I, guitar and bass Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s TRANSCRIPT: Refrain: Holy darkness, blessed night, heaven’s answer, hidden from our sight. As we await you, O God of silence, we embrace your holy night. I have tried you in fires of affliction; I have taught your soul to grieve. In the barren soil of your loneliness, there I will plant my seed. Refrain. I have taught you the price of compassion; you have stood before the grave. Though my love can seem like a raging storm, this is the love that saves. Refrain. In your deepest hour of darkness I will give you wealth untold. When the silence stills your spirit, will my riches fill your soul. Refrain.

From the Buddhist Tradition | Attadiipaa Sutta (A Lamp to Oneself) Read by Liem Nguyen, MDiv II Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s TRANSCRIPT: Monks, be a lamp unto yourselves, be your own refuge, having no other; let the Dhamma be a lamp and a refuge to you, having no other. Those who are lamps unto themselves... should investigate to the very heart of things: ‘What is the source of sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair? How do they arise?’  Here, monks, the uninstructed worldling. Change occurs in this man's body, and it becomes different. On account of this change and difference, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair arise.  But seeing the body’s impermanence, its change-ability, its waning, its ceasing, he says ‘formerly as now, all bodies were impermanent and unsatisfactory, and subject to change.’ Thus, seeing this as it really is, with perfect insight, he abandons all sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. He is not worried at their abandonment, but unworried lives at ease, and thus living at ease he is said to be ‘assuredly delivered.’

From the Traditions of Queer Spiritualities | Excerpts from “Poem of Perfect Miracles,” by Walt Whitman Read by Vivian Trutzl, MTS II Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s TRANSCRIPT: Why! who makes much of a miracle?  As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,  Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,  Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water, Or stand under trees in the woods,  Or talk by day with any one I love— or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother,  Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,  Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of an August forenoon, Or animals feeding in the fields, To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every inch of space is a miracle,  Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same; Every spear of grass— the frames, limbs, organs, of [people] men and women, and all that concerns them, All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles. — Whitman, Walt. Excerpts from “Poem of Perfect Miracles,” Leaves of Grass (1856), whitmanarchive.org.

From the Jewish Tradition | “The Light of the Spirit Never Dies” by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Read by Madeline Levy, MTS II Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s TRANSCRIPT: There’s an interesting question the commentators ask about Chanukah. For eight days we light lights, and each night we make the blessing over miracles: she-asah nissim la-avotenu. But what was the miracle of the first night? The light that should have lasted one day lasted eight. But that means there was something miraculous about days 2 to 8; but nothing miraculous about the first day. Perhaps the miracle was this, that the Maccabees found one cruse of oil with its seal intact, undefiled. There was no reason to suppose that anything would have survived the systematic desecration the Greeks and their supporters did to the Temple. Yet the Maccabees searched and found that one jar. Why did they search? Because they had faith from the worst tragedy something would survive. The miracle of the first night was that of faith itself, the faith that something would remain with which to begin again. from 8 Short Thoughts for 8 Chanukah Nights https://rabbisacks.org/8-thoughts-8-nights/

From Traditions of the Afrikan* Diaspora | Regla de Ocha-Ifá, an AfroCuban Spiritual Tradition Chanted by Nadia Milad Issa, MTS I *Preferred spelling of the student representative. Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s TRANSCRIPT: Text on-screen at beginning of reading: Translations of Yoruba chants are highly exclusive to men Akpwón, an issue central to Nadia’s scholarly research. A rough translation, provided by one of their elders, of what they are singing follows. Yemayá is the Ocean and the universal mother. The Mayo is one of the names to refer to Yemayá. Oraye is the call to all people across the world to work together in community. Bambi is a power of Yemayá. Sung text: Yemayá mayo, Yemayá mayo. Yemayá mayo awoyo kuekue Ilé. Oraye Bambi Oraye, Bobo raye Oni Yemayá, Oraye Bambi Oraye O, Bobo Raye Alawa Bocheche.

From the Tradition of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints | Isaiah 60: 1-4; 18-20, The Holy Bible (King James Version) Read by Joe Sorensen, MDiv III Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s TRANSCRIPT: Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

From the Christian Tradition | 2 Corinthians 4:6-18, The Bible (NRSV) Read by Emmanuel Correa Vazquez, MDiv III Seasons of Light is hosted by Harvard Divinity School's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life under the direction of Christopher Hossfeld, Director of Music and Ritual, and Kerry A. Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. The full video recording of Seasons of Light 2020 can be found on the HDS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuYb9d7tCc&t=587s TRANSCRIPT: For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture— “I believed, and so I spoke”— we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.