Did you notice how beautiful the light was yesterday? The tree branches were rimmed with silver; even the gloomiest patches of laurel were transformed. I was thinking about that this morning when I got up and realised we faced three hours of darkness before daybreak. Peter of Celles used to love the long dark winter nights because they gave him more time for prayer. In the twenty-first century we are more inclined to switch on electric lights and deny the darkness. We need to get on, do what we want to do; the natural rhythms of night and day are barriers to be overcome.

New Year resolutions are probably already looking a little limp, but perhaps we could spend a moment or two today asking how far we have allowed ourselves to become strangers to the natural rhythms of night and day, the season, even our own bodies (hands up those who went to bed last night muttering that they had spent too long in front of the television?). The connection with prayer may not be immediately obvious, but one of the first requirements of the contemplative is to look and take notice, to allow God the opportunity to speak. And when God speaks, things happen.