Our Christian wisdom is to name the darkness as darkness, and the Light as light, and to learn how to live and work in the Light so that the darkness does not overcome us.

If we have a pie-in-the-sky, everything-is-beautiful attitude, we are in fact going to be trapped by the darkness because we are not seeing clearly enough to separate the wheat from the chaff (the more common “liberal” temptation).

Conversely, if we can only see the darkness and forget the more foundational Light, we will be destroyed by our own negativity and fanaticism, or we will naively think we are apart from the darkness (the more common “conservative” temptations.

Instead, we must wait and work with hope inside of the darkness–while never doubting the light that God always is–and that we are, too (Matt. 5:14). That is the narrow birth canal of God into the world–through the darkness and into an ever-greater Light.

from Preparing for Christmas