Light and Life

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." - John, the apostle

I don't know that the world is getting any darker but it sure feels that way. Humans are pretty good at coping though and so it becomes pretty easy to live in a self induced state of denial about how bad things are (and have been for oh, the last six thou or so). We learn to tolerate, adapt to, and even participate in darkness and the celebration of. For example, I remember briefly being disturbed by the fact that I was rooting for a gang of thieves while watching the movie Ocean's Eleven, but apparently not disturbed enough to refrain from watching its sequels; Ocean's Twelve and Thirteen. That has been me in a nutshell up to this point in my life - mildly or even blatantly amused by sin, willfully ignorant of convenient injustices, and in general deaf to most of the din and roar beyond whatever walls my mind could create. A line from my friend John's blog sums it up well,

St. Cyprian wrote to his friend in North Africa in the third century admitting from his “fair garden under the shadow of these vines” that the world looked cheerful. Yet he also knew that if he were to step away from the shade of his comfort, he would see that “It is really a bad world Donatus, an incredibly bad world”

At some point in the past year I feel as though I have been shaken from the comfort of my mental "Shire" and have started to become aware of the prescence of the Valley of the Shadow. It hasn't been tragedy or hardship that has jolted me awake but rather the overwhelming prescence of beauty. Patty Griffin's voice, Mark Helprin's writing, Brahms, Thomas Sowell's mind, the boundless delight found in my wife Jennifer's face, the subdued pastels and heartbreaking silence of twilight, the Guadalupe on my skin, the grace in my daughter's smile, the smell of warm bread and it's ability to satisfy so deeply. All of these and more have shattered me. I am ruined for anything less. These gifts have driven me straight into the arms of the one I call, "The Great Other." Father, Spirit, Son. Jesus, Yahweh, The Great "I Am." And all of this feels like about the twentieth of what will surely be hundreds of salvations. Saved from myself, saved from death, saved from illusions, saved to life, and on and on it goes.

Like many believers I have dutifully attempted at times in my life to steer clear of sin, with some modest successes, and too many failures to count. My primary method for doing this was to attempt to build a series of floodgates to keep the darkness out. Not only did it not work, but in my fixation to keep the darkness out, I was ignorant of the light. My primary focus was in keeping darkness out rather than letting light in.

And then in spite of myself; morning broke, and I was awakened to the glorious light, and in that light I found life.

To my left and to my right is a darkness blacker than death, I am more aware of it now than ever before, but in front of me is Light and Life and with a face set like flint on what I desire, I choose Light and I choose Life. I exult in its radiant joy. I can see it (hear it, taste it, touch it, smell it) now.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." - Jesus, (The Light and The Life)