Tuesday, September 26, 2017
From yesterday’s Gospel. Jesus
said, “No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a
bed; rather he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the
light.” (Luke 8:16)
In a spiritual sense, we’ve been
given so much light in our lives and in our hearts as we draw close to Jesus in
our prayer and our worship, in our reading and study of the Gospels, in the
psalms we pray and the candles we light, in the freedoms that we enjoy and the
ongoing work of grace that continually helps us to know and to understand
things we could only dream of in the past.
There are so many people in the
world who suffer from a lack of light. People who have to toil in the dark,
prisoners, people whose horizons are darkened through pain and anguish or by
sin, people living under oppressive and violent governments, those who are
blind (either physically or metaphorically), victims of abuse and neglect of
all kinds, and all those who suffer in body, mind or spirit.
How can we give away the light
that we have? There’s one thing about light: it isn’t weakened if it is shared;
it can’t be diminished by giving it away. Think of the beginning of the Nicene
Creed: God from God, light from light . .
.
Can people receive light from
us? Are there things we can do and ways we can act that share light? Can people
see light when they read the words we have written or listen to the music we
are making, or simply by looking at our faces? Stand in front of a mirror and look
closely at your face: what does your usual face at rest look like? Is it
frowning and dark? Is your smile a source of light that you can give away? . .
. . . things to think about.
I was moved by a few words I
read in a meditation by Steven Taylor (The
Calm Center): “try to illuminate the darkness that still fills the lives of
others.”
Whom do you need to pray for
today, tonight, tomorrow?
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