Which from the street looks like four white-hot appendages growing out of a bell-shaped skirt, a few blinking intermittently like something at the airport and strung together with silvery reflecting ribbons, but up close looks like the inside of a six-foot tall LED network and you can clearly make out the outstretched robed arms and giant wings like an eagle just setting down on its perch and there are some dark red circles that resemble a sash and the sleeve cuffs of a robe. Like a compressed constellation.

And if it is a little electronic and spidery it does suggest how the night sky could produce these flashes of light, portraying an angel choir, just before it broke into neighborhood-alarming hymns of praise, “Glory to the new-born king,” which I would not simulate in this neighborhood more suited to “Silent Night.” Angels have been known to disturb the sleep of human beings, but their announcements always broke forth in the country, where there are no “Disturbing the peace” laws that would slap a fine on your humble abode.  So our electric vision sings silently.

Suddenly it seemed appropriate to spring for a $100 Electronic Angel after spending excessively to overhaul the landscaping in front of our house this fall, a wondrous improvement, but hardly visible in the night, where our dark house lies calmly on a street with intermittent Christmas decorations. We do not go in for the spectacular, our plantings stooped dark evergreens bordered by coppery, grayish boulders, but we wear winter fashion well.

Overnight the flashing white LED’s have awakened our yard and the gloomy end of our street, reminding us of a miraculous story in the lightly trafficked darkness.  Most of all the story is about light shining in the uncomprehending night after night for two thousand years and if the Electronic Angel gives it a tacky spin, it is ok with me if only it reminds me that heaven has come and keeps coming into our most darkening moments.  For the intrusive glow illuminating our dining room window with mute alleluia, thank you, Holy Light.