THE nights are drawing in...we don’t really need to be reminded of this when it feels as though it is dark by mid-afternoon.

The arrival of November always coincides with dark evenings, as well as cold days, and often gloomy ones.

It also coincides with the season of remembrance; both Remembrance Sunday and its bright red poppies, but also, in the church, the time of remembering those we love but who have died, and the services which end with a sea of flickering candles reminding us of our love for those who have died recently or long ago.

Then, in the middle of all this, is November 5, and the time of rockets soaring up into the sky and bonfires.

As the daylight lessens, we find reasons to fill our lives with the light of candles, of fireworks, and (soon) of twinkling fairy lights.

It is a natural human response, but I think all these lights also speak to something deep within us – the power of hope and faith that darkness can never destroy love and life.

This is also at the heart of the Christian faith – the faith that even at the times of greatest pain and darkness, Christ, the light of the world, is with us all, and remains a light in our lives.