…Opening To…

Look upon me, O Lord, and let all the darkness of my soul vanish before the beams of your brightness. (Saint Augustine of Hippo)

…Listening In…

How long shall I have perplexity in my mind, and grief in my heart, day after day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me? Look upon me and answer me, O Lord my God; give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death. (Psalm 13: 2-3; context)

…Filling Up…

Imagine that you are lying in bed and, for some reason – perhaps you accidentally set your alarm clock wrong or you have an early hockey practice – you wake up at about 5:30 in the morning. The diameter of the pupils of your eyes grows as your eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. There’s a tiny sliver of soft pre-dawn light sliding under the blinds on the windows – just enough light for pitch dark to soften to regular dark. You lie there trying to fall back to sleep. Sleep doesn’t return, so you try the trick of keeping your eyes open as long as you can in hopes that they will tire and close on their own.

Your eyes rove around your room, and you notice how different the walls and bookcases and trophies and posters look in the near darkness. Everything is there, exactly as you left it last night. But everything looks odd because the darkness has leached the color out of all the objects in the room. The first and second place trophies, usually distinguishable because of their blue and red colors are different only in height now. The clothes in your open closet look like hand-me-downs from the wardrobe department of a black and white film. The world as you know it faded to gray during the night.

“Give light to my eyes,” pleads the person who wrote Psalm 13. The psalmist knows that the world has no vibrancy, no vividness, no vitality without the wonder that is light. Without light, we have no hope of noticing the beauty of all the colors under the sun, all the paint that God brushed and scattered and sloshed onto creation’s canvas. It’s no wonder then that God created light first of all, perhaps because God knew that when we humans came along, we would need that light to live fully in this world. What a gift it is to be able to see all the hues of the flowers in a garden. What a gift it is to be able to tell the difference between football teams. What a gift it is to notice the subtle variations of color in a friend’s eyes. What a gift is light. And we never notice this gift until it’s not there.

…Praying For…

Dear God, thank you for the light with which you show the glory of your creation to your creatures. Give light to my eyes so that I might see all the things you would have me see in all the beauty and complexity that those things possess; in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are a light that never goes out. You are always shining on the path that takes me home.