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I didn’t quite make it to Stonehenge, but I did rise early enough to watch the sun come up, on this the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. The solstice used to feel like the domain of druids and pagans alone, but I think more of us, now, sense there’s something worth marking or celebrating, even if we can’t quite put our finger on why. Perhaps it’s a nostalgic yearning to reconnect with the rhythms, seasons and cycles of the natural world. Or to find our place in this universe which stretches all the way back to “in the beginning” - and which, if you take a theological point from the Biblical creation story, is a universe that was harmonious and good. Whatever the reason, the light is an evocative spiritual theme. It’s often over-looked that in that story at the start of Genesis, God says “Let there be light!” well before he creates the sun, moon and stars. As the prologue to John’s Gospel elaborates: “What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.” Enlightenment, if you like, from the start. Illumination. Radiance. There is so much darkness in our world - this week is no exception, of course - that it’s easy to focus all of our anxious attention upon it, and to find ourselves constantly fearful and out of kilter, as a result. The darkness can feel so much more powerful. But it doesn’t mean the light, that original radiance, is not there, if we train ourselves to see it... As the priest and author Richard Rohr suggests, “We have spent centuries of philosophy trying to solve ‘the problem of evil’, yet the more ... confounding issue is how we account for so much goodness in this world.” And there is always goodness breaking out around us, if we stop to take account. The kindness of strangers, the selflessness of aid workers, the heroism of rescue teams. All sorts of ordinary people, shining their light. Put it another way, and we might wonder, what if the universe wasn’t a battle-ground to conquer, or a problem to be solved, as we so often see it, but a place of original goodness and blessing for us to rediscover instead? That would surely be something to celebrate - it would change the way we lived! - and maybe that’s in part why the party’s in full swing down at Stonehenge. The ancients may have known something we've forgotten, as they gathered for the dawning of their solstice. But it shouldn’t stop us looking positively to the light, today - and from being thankful, at the very least, for all the goodness that comes our way.