A season for lights is upon us. Since human beings first began to inhabit the northern hemisphere following the last Ice Age, people turned to fire as a source of illumination, as well as heat. These fire pits and torches lit man's way into the darkening months as the north pole tilted away from the sun.

With the growth of farms and cities, communities of memory emerged and forged fire-borne festivals to invite sol invictus to halt his retreat and return to lengthen the hours of daylight once more. Bonfires, story-telling, dance and song offered the brave assertion of humanity against the advancing pall of winter.

The advent of the Iron Age saw astronomers of Babylon fix with certainty the calendar of times and seasons. With eyes set upon the moon and stars, human beings achieved a consciousness of the affinity between the human spirit and the power of light. As the psalmist observed 2,500 years ago, "The soul of man is the Eternal's taper."

From a candle fashioned of oil-and-wick to the man-made lighting of a new millennium, humanity persists in kindling flames to hold back the night. In the Space Age the stars themselves may gaze upon earthly luminaries, whose radiance augments solar reflection.

Among the countless sparks of the season are lights of celebration, as well as those for illumination, joyous flashes of redemption and hope at the very solstice of dark. May the affirmation lit up by this shining expression of the human spirit neither gutter nor be extinguished like an ordinary lamp.

The divine fiat by which the Book of Books announced the dawn of creation, "Let there be light!" has been fulfilled. Around the vast girth of the globe of Atlas, at all times and in every season, earth's children make the planet glow with electric flames: light there is.