Happy Hanukah - 1st Night

Two candles.  The shamash, the beadle, the one who lights the others and stands over them, and another, over there on the left, or the right, or the middle if you've got a round menorah and I laugh at myself every year.

My father would be proud that I am lighting the candles at all.  I imagine him agreeing with the choice I made tonight: I started on the left, TBG started on the right.

Big Cuter called several times during the day, discussing football with his father, but as the sun set and the first star came out he called to say Happy Hanukkah ... and to wonder which side of the menorah....  it's the magnetic menorah he has on his refrigerator all year long, but which, for 8 days, is more than just wallpaper. It is significant, its magnetic flame should be properly placed.

Daddooooo is grinning from ear to ear right now.
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No matter that this is an historical holiday, not a canonical Biblical one.  Purim and Queen Esther made the cut, but Matithias and the sons and the elephants and the caves were left out of the books the rest of the world calls the Old Testament.  It gets much more attention than it deserves.

It's a pretty cool miracle, though.  The vial of oil outlasting everyone's expectations... the little light that could.

The Light as a topic has been swirling around me.  My Professor described The Light as that which his missionary parents brought to China, that which the Gospels brought to the Galatians, that which art and theology represented in the examples on the screen. A Play Group pal wished that I might find the light after the Planned Parenthood massacre.  And now, it's Chanukah, with all those lights.

When it's right, it's right.