Light of the World

Lately the theme of Light and Dark in spirituality has been coming up for me, so I'll probably stick to that for this post. I figure when a theme or topic comes up more than 3 or 4 times in a week, it probably means God wants you to draw something from it and learn from it. I can't remember when it first started coming up, I think a Gospel or other reading from church lately, but it's been coming up in my class on John, and in music (see my last post) and just in being in my house at night versus in the daytime. It always seemed interesting to me that there was such dichotomy between the two when used in spiritual terms (Son [Sun] of God, Prince of Darkness, etc...). But, just as water can have good cleansing effects and be destructive, so does light have it's good properties and proper times. Light allows sight...ergo, for us to have knowledge of what is around us and give meaning to that which would have none. Yet, there is a time for darkness when we must sleep.

Sometimes, when I think of God as Light, I think of it as an unbearable light, to be honest. A light from which I have to shield myself...because it is so overwhelming, or because I'm ashamed of what God may be aware. (Really, Lord, You don't want to know how I've been lacking in this aspect in life...don't shine on me now...I don't think You'll like what You find...) I think of flashlight searching in the dark. You know those creepy movies when the characters are using a flashlight, and it suddenly lands on something super scary that makes your heart and stomach switch places? Then I heard the song Fireflies by Jessa Anderson and it made me think of Light in a different way. A soft glow. A dazzling display. It makes you stand in awe at it's beauty, humbled and yet exalted and exhilarated at the same time. Today in John: Gospel and Epistles, Dr. S was giving his lecture on the Essenes, and how the Jews before and at the time of Jesus would sometimes pray to God as Father, but it wasn't emphasized too much, and then it was the stern, tough-love Father figure that they would have emphasized. It was Jesus who first introduced the concept of praying to God as Abba (Daddy). That which we imagined as harsh has just been re-introduced as soft, tender, and approachable. And, when I think of Light in that way, it's not so much a burning, hard light, as much as a warm, healing glow in which you want to stay.

And then, in the Gospel of Matthew, we are called to be the light of the world. I think I want to be a soft glow as well. Softly, silently revealing Beauty. Approachable...not too timid to shed light on that which is not good, but not scalding either. I love tabernacle candles. You never notice them, really. They're not self-important. Yet, the fact that they are lit gives me hope, because I know that where one is, there is Jesus. Kind of an image of Mary...always pointing back to her Son. That's the kind of light I want to be...unnoticed, but revealing the presence of Jesus. I pray that you all find your own ways to be lights unto the world!