By Sr. Doreen, SSJD
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105)
“Let there be light, let there be understanding, let all the nations gather, let them be face to face.
Open our lips, open our minds to ponder; open the door of concord opening into grace.
Perish the sword, perish the angry judgement, perish the fight for gain. Hallow our love,
hallow the deaths of martyrs, hallow their holy freedom, hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy spirit turn to language, thy people speak together, they spirit never fade. Let there be light, open our hearts to wonder, perish the way of terror, hallow the world of God made”.
(Hymn #572 Common Praise Anglican Church of Canada)
As I began to ponder the Church Calendar scripture reading for the month of April, my mind went almost immediately to the hymn in Common Praise that I have shared above. It seems to bring together for me two aspects of truth that are important. Jesus said I am the light of the world (John 8:12) – and Jesus said you are a light for the world, a light that cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:14-16).
These are rich passage for Lectio Divina – slow, pondering reading and meditation. Putting these two passages together raises questions. Jesus is the light of the world and says we are to be light to the world. How can we do that? The simple answer is to say that we can start by modeling what Jesus did. Almost immediately there is an inner reaction that seems to say, ‘but that is impossible, me be like Jesus?’ However, you and I both know that nothing is impossible with God! Remember, God says over and over again, ‘you are my beloved in whom I am well pleased, you are my beautiful child made in my perfect image, and I love you and will never leave you’!
You know what, we can do it! Together, with Jesus and with each other, we can make a big difference when it comes to being ‘light’ for others.
Can we understand what it means to be light if we have never known what it means and feels like to be in darkness? In the preface page to the service of Compline booklet put out by the Anglican Church of Canada in 2001 we read: “The biblical imagery in Night Prayer affirms the presence of the One who both surrounds and fills us and places us within the safe circle of God’s love. Our awareness of God’s love acts as a catalyst that enables us to meet the challenges of night and to grow in faith.” I suspect that we have all had experiences of ‘dark’ places in our life journeys. We know what it is like to feel stranded in the midst of life, and to feel like there is no light. And we also know that it is only when we are willing to surrender ourselves into God’s hands, to let go – to cry out for help – to trust even when we are vulnerable, that we learn how to walk through the darkness and allow God’s love to transform those dark places in our lives and bring us into light.
Joan Chittister talks in her book “Between the Dark and the Daylight” about times that when we think there is no light in ourselves: “But we think wrong. There is a light in us that only darkness itself can illuminate. It is the glowing calm that comes over us when we finally surrender to the ultimate truth of creation: that there is a God and we are not it.”
This transformative truth ‘I am not God’ and that deep remembering of all God’s promises, is what is that light, however dim, that shines in darkness, in all of our darknesses. Only when we have experienced our own darkness are we given the light we need to be of help to others whose journey has led them into those dark places in their own lives. It is something to remember “I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.” (Og Mandino) These stars are new insights, new directions, new awareness: and they are only really found by walking through those dark places in our lives, trusting ‘Oh God, my God eagerly I seek you … do not forsake me.”.
We can’t see our future, direction, or destination, but God can. Like the lighthouse guided the ship, we are directed toward God’s light, that little pilot light within us, that unconditional and tenacious love of God, that guides us through the darkness seasons of life, and the struggles, both spiritually and literally. God is always calling us ‘I will neve leave you nor forsake you … I have chosen you and you are mine.’
We can’t see our future, direction, or destination, but God can. Like the lighthouse guided the ship, we are directed toward God’s light, that little pilot light within us, that unconditional and tenacious love of God, that guides us through the darkness seasons of life, and the struggles, both spiritually and literally. God is always calling us ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you … I have chosen you and you are mine.’
Remember, oh remember the promises we have heard: “I will lead the blind by a way they did not know; I will guide them on unfamiliar paths. I will turn darkness into light before them and rough places into level ground. These things I will do for them, and I will not forsake them. (Isaiah 42:16)
And so being the light means that we try to do our best to live each day purposefully, in a way that shows kindness and compassion to others, and to ourselves. That we look for opportunities to lift others up, and to do the right thing. These things we can do, to be light for each other and the world: to be kind and walk in love, to treat others as we ourselves want to be treated, to be humble, to give thanks always even in the midst of challenges, to reach out to others, to be vulnerable and focused. That we keep alive in our hearts and active in our living, the words of Micah “what does God require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)
“Clearly, at the end of the day, life stands out exceedingly kind. If we do not resist it, if we dance the dance whole and entire, we too may come to the end of it weathered and strong, winsome and laughing, stomping and reeling in holy hysteria for what we have learned, for what we have become, that which we could not have been without our own particular recipe of cleansing pain and perfect joy in proper proportions. (Joan Chittister in “For Everything a Season”)
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom (or what) shall I be afraid.” (psalm 27:1)
Jim Strathdee wrote the following song that was popular some years ago and seems a fitting way to end my meditation on the light of the world. It is a song which ‘mixes’ both the God-light and ourselves as light.
I am the Light of the World. You people come and follow me.
If you follow and love, you’ll learn the mystery of what you were meant to do and be.
1. When the song of the angels is stilled. When the star in the sky is gone.
When the kings and the shepherds have found their way home, the work of Christmas is begun!
I am the Light of the World. You people come and follow me.
If you follow and love, you’ll learn the mystery of what you were meant to do and be.
2. To find the lost and lonely one, to heal that broken soul with love,
To feed the hungry children with warmth and good food, to feel the earth below the sky above!
I am the Light of the World. You people come and follow me.
If you follow and love, you’ll learn the mystery of what you were meant to do and be.
3. To free the prisoner from his chains, to make the powerful care,
To rebuild the nations with strength and goodwill, to call a person your neighbour everywhere.
I am the Light of the World. You people come and follow me.
If you follow and love, you’ll learn the mystery of what you were meant to do and be.
4. To bring hope to every task you do, to dance at a baby’s new birth,
To make music in an old person’s heart, and sing to the colors of the earth!
I am the Light of the World. You people come and follow me.
If you follow and love, you’ll learn the mystery of what you were meant to do and be.
