SHADOWS

Shadows lengthen. Night comes earlier and morning later. We sat in the sun this afternoon, soaking up the last of the warmth. Temperatures begin to drop tonight and stay south of 50 for at least the next 10 days.

We rolled up the garden hoses, de-leaved the gutters, emptied the potted plants on the deck. The winter hiking clothes are neatly stashed in the trunk of my car so, come what may, I will be out in the healing creation.

Outside is getting tucked in as we prepare for the darker, colder season of the year. The question is now before us, “How do we prepare our insides for this time?”

Along with wood brought from the woodpile to the staging area closer to the door, it is time to start making plans for warming our home with healing connections. It is time to make plans for friends to come and eat and drink with us. It is time to plan a couple of parties for family land friends. It is time to clean out the closet again and give more unworn clothes for those who have no warm clothes and too many of them who have no warm shelter.

And it is time to slow and settle into the darker days and let them speak to us. New seeds can germinate in space where there isn’t too much light. Hints of hope can sprout in the mystery of broken suffering. Insights can flicker into candle light, maybe even brighter light to clarify future’s path.

Winter is waiting. May it be a blessing.

HATE TURNS OUT THE LIGHT

Some of the best things I read keep calling me back to them so that I can discover more than I saw the first time. Such is the case with Barbara Brown Taylor’s article in the Christian Century (April 2, 2014) entitled “Light without sight.” She shares thoughts about light in darkness that she gleaned in reading And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran.

When Lusseyran, a French resistance fighter who was captured by the Nazis  was shipped to Buchenwald, "he learned how hate worked against him, not only darkening his world but making it smaller as well.  When he let himself become consumed with anger he started running into things, slamming into walls and tripping over furniture.”

Hate blinds us even when we can’t see. It disorients us and keeps us from knowing where we are in relationship to other things in our world. Hate crimes are crimes committed because people are blind to the fullness of life in another. They are crimes committed because they can only see what threatens them about the other, not the full humanity of the other. 

But, when Lusseyran “called himself back to attention, . . . the space both inside and outside of him opened up so that he found his way and moved with ease again.The most valuable thing he learned was that no one could turn out the light inside him without his consent.”

When we hate another, when we allow our anger to shrink our world and we lose sight of the fullness of the other, the light goes out within. So, we have to remember that we have control over that inner light.  It will not go out if we allow love of another to overcome our hate.  If we pay attention to the fullness of life that exists in the other, then light will guide us in our relationship with them.

LIGHT INSIDE

He was afraid of the dark. He cried and so his parents put a night light in his room.  With the warm glow of a few watts, he was comforted and went to sleep. From early childhood, we believe that if there is light coming into us,we will be OK. We somehow think that our sense of well-being comes from outside ourselves.

But Barbara Brown Taylor, in a recent article in the Christian Century, tells of a man who helped her see a deeper truth. In his book, And There Was Light, Jacques Lusseyran, a blind French resistance fighter during WWII, wrote about going blind as a child. Only 10 days after he went blind, he made a discovery that influenced the rest of his life. "I had completely lost the sight of my eyes; I could not see the light of the world anymore. Yet the light was still there. . . . The source of light is not in the outer world. We believe that is is only because of a common delusion. The light dwells where life also dwells: within ourselves." (The Christian Century, April 2, 2014)

"The light dwells where life also dwells: within ourselves." I sometimes lament how much time I have spent in my life expecting light to come from the outside of myself. How much time I have wasted waiting for someone else to affirm my worth? How many insights I have missed because I looked for others to give me answers to  my life's issues? How much energy have I spent seeking clarity from the lights that flash unrelentingly from culture's values?

Light dwells where life exists. And life exists within each of us. Life, in its glory and pain, in its delight and hurt, in it tenderness and roughness, plays itself out within our hearts and souls. If we take time to pay attention to that life, to the heartbeat of our soul, the light that illumines us will not go out when it get's dark around us.