cairns

These three pictures were taken on a mountain top in China in 2009 under the slimmest  sliver of a moon showing in the first picture.  The second picture shows the way down with no flash turned on, and the last is the same view with a flash.  I know the camera stays open longer without a flash, but they still make a point to me, that I wanted to share.

It was dark up there!  But the middle picture shows that the easiest way down was using the available natural light.  With it we could see the entire area.  The last is the effect of a man made light — everything very close is completely lit and the rest of the world is invisible.  Many who have spent time away from cities know this trick of travel.

But, it takes me back to what I wrote last.  It sounds great to say the light is obvious when the situation is dark.  But life often just does not seem that way.  Dark times are dark or we would not call them that!  This is one of the places where “feel good” theology leaves people in touch with life’s realities  assuming we do not have a clue what we are talking about!  They know when it is dark no matter what we say!

But, I think there is a corollary that makes sense. When we cannot see past a few feet, perhaps we are using too much of our own light.  Better to stand still, remain open, and become aware of the Light that surrounds us.

peace

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about the candle?

I grew up on songs about the wonders of the candle for beating back the darkness –This little light of mine, It is better to light just one..Pass it on…

Lately I have been thinking more about the darkness than the candle.  Then Mavis Staples found her turn on my ipod, and tonight a TV show ends with another rendition of ‘this little light’…

And it makes me wonder

about the candle,

does it feel

the weight of the darkness

that surrounds it,

does it feel

its own fate

in the fight,

does it love

or curse

the hand

that lights

it,

gives it

purpose,

and sacrifice,

makes it

a beacon

for a season,

and invites

its consumption,

and transcendence

into heat

and light?

peace

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I am reading Christ and Empire, (Thanks for the recommendation Tim).  At the end of chapter two, Rieger is explaining how the early councils’ theologies of Christ’s oneness with both God and humanity open up the world of understanding of both God and each other.

“Is the divine somehow linked with the success of those in power (or other preconceived notions of the top down), or is the divine linked to the Christ who cannot easily be defined and whose power moves from the bottom up instead of from the top down?  Second, how do we understand humanity and its relationship to divinity?  If we understand humanity or divinity according to the private-property model (as if humans would “own” some part of God), we will not get much beyond an identity politics that closes the doors to deeper encounters with Christ and the complexity of his full humanity and full divinity.  Only if we do not own the divine can divinity in Christ yet surprise us by being other than we imagine.”

That gets at the darkness I am comfortable in — not darkness as the absence of the light I have been given so far — but darkness in comparison to the light I yet expect.  There is such joy in waiting to be surprised by the God who is both known and beyond all knowing! peace

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Maybe it was somewhere in reading Os Guiness quote John’s words about living in the light and no longer being able to live in the dark, or watching Bruce Springsteen sing “This Little Light of Mine,” or CS Lewis’ tool-shed analogy coming back around again that it hit me.  Maybe the spiritual world looks dark for the same reason the woods does to a little scout with a good flashlight!

I learned long ago not to use an artificial light for walking unless absolutely necessary because it blinds you to everything not in its light.  You can see your little spot to put your foot and the rest of the world is cloaked in darkness.  It happens sitting by the fire as well.  The bigger and brighter the fire, the darker everything else in the world appears.

So here I am contemplating the moment of Jesus arrival to claim the Old testament saints and it dawns on me.  Where He is its light.  Where I am, He is.  Where I am it is never dark.  But looking outward from the light– the world looks dark, very dark.  I live in the presence of The Light.  How can the rest fail to look anything but dark in the contrast?  How many times do I have to learn that the physical and spiritual worlds are not so separate or distinct from one another as we make them?  How foolish to sit in the light looking out into the dark and proclaim myself to be in the dark!  I am laughing.

It is time to quit looking out there somewhere for light and do more inviting into the fire-circle!

peace

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