Category Archives: Light

Christmas Light

28 Monday Dec 2020

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Sometime a Light surprises…

We celebrate that Light that has come and incoming, that continues to come! This year we have just endured has seemed overwhelmingly dark in hue with so many things blacked out, covered over, chaotic and unwelcome. Yet the Light keeps shining!

Several times this past week I have walked into a place in shadow or shade and a Light surprised me–a sunbeam focused on a silver cup, a refracted reflection of the dawn from outside on a bedroom wall, a sunset caught on a Christmas tree ornament, and a flash of lightning illuminating the early morning garden. The Light keeps appearing!

I also felt it, let it wash over me, as I read about former students who have persisted and prevailed in ministry in very difficult circumstances, in grandchildren who have not only survived, but thrived, in these times of on-line schooling and confinement, in persistent loving and care for those who experience homelessness and hunger by faithful people who do what Love demands.

In anticipation of turning the page on the calendar into a new year, I trust that the Light of the World keeps on being!

I believe in the sun, even when it isn’t shining, / believe in love, even when I do not feel it/I believe in God, even when God is silent.

Whatever cracks appear in this turning and living of the year ahead, the Light will get in…surprisingly!

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Light through Clouds

22 Friday May 2020

Posted by in clouds, Easter, Light, rainbow, Uncategorized

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I have set my bow in the clouds…

I received an anonymous gift in the mail during this upset in our world: a prism to place in my window that catches the Light as it comes, and turns the sunrise into a shower of rainbow dots all over the room, bringing joy and healing to my spirit every day the sun breaks through! From my bed or from my prayer corner for awhile the light shines–beautiful, comforting, healing! In this closing days of Eastertide, I am aware that through the entire holy season beginning with Lent, I have been focused on the clouds–real and metaphorical–that have dominated airways–through the media and through personal stories of grief and loss. Even the Easter we celebrated, virtually, seems remote and covered over.

Yet as I received and have learned how to use my rainbow prism, it has become a symbol for me of another truth, which is that behind and through the Great Grayness–of pandemic, of flood, of corruption, of loss–the Light is shining; none of those griefs can douse it! I have been given Light by witnessing the open hearts for so many to care for the most fragile and endangered members of our community, including former students of mine who routinely put themselves on the line for the hungry, the frightened and the those in despair. I take great joy when I see how creatively and vigilantly another former student in ministry cares for the children and women in her church, from a distance. I am blessed when I am able to participate in music that comes in the worship services on-line each Sunday, with leaders both taking the lead and adding the harmony to what we are invited to sing. I am experiencing new dimensions of my beloved family–their resilience, their creativity, their breadth of curiosity and interest! I was surrounded by a rainbow of joy when out of the blue, I heard from my granddaughter, replete with video, asking me to help on a school project.

Primarily though I see points of Light in my sharing this faith journey with so many others, sheltered in place, chafing at the limitations, anxious about the road ahead, yet still faithful in the struggle to hear, to see, the feel the Light of the Holy on themselves and in the world God loves. Out of the shared struggle comes so many question, so many dead ends, yet so much hope!

The book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Bible is all about that grievous struggle–loss, corruption, limitation–yet right in the middle, I find these words: The steadfast love of the Holy One never ceases/God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning!” Like rainbow prism dots all around my room when the sun breaks through the clouds! I am grateful!

Blessing the Light That Comes

01 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in candlemas, illumination, Light, Uncategorized

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Candlemas 2020

While writing my Advent blog posts, I was anticipating a brilliant coming of Light for the twelve days of Christmas, beginning Christmas Day. Instead on the third day of Christmas, I was in the hospital with my husband who was having emergency surgery, to be ensconced there for the next 9 days. New Year’s Eve and Day passed in a great grayness, less in fear, more in what Carrie Newcomer calls, “learning to live without knowing,” The light we had was Santa Monica sunshine through hospital windows during the day, and fluorescent glow by night. No candles allowed!

Therefore, it is with great anticipation, gratitude and hope that I welcome Candlemas. In one part of the tradition, it is the day when people bring their candles they will use for the next year and seek a blessing for them, with the intention of letting each of them be a reflection of the Light that has come into the world. As I look back at the days of Christmastide, there were so many places that Light was shining: meals offered and brought; cards, call and texts received; errands run; surprise gifts to cheer our spirits and a providential meeting with a willing and able dog walker who can handle our ever-so-so energetic, eternally youthful puppy. Prayers were rising from many corners of our past and present lives. The Light kept shining!

So it is with a hopeful and reassured heart that I assemble some of the candles in my life that I hope to light in this coming season: the ones that accompany me when I am engaged in sacred conversation; the beeswax one that illuminates the table where meals are shared, all the while reminding us of the need to keep our natural world as clean and safe as we can; the gifts that remind me in scent and depth that love and caring keep shining even in the most opaque darkness; the tall beacons that call attention to the world, wide and deep, with need for wholeness, for repair, for truth-telling. And I ask for blessing for the calling of each one as it is lighted and spreads it gift in the place where it is planted.

The lighting of candles sometimes seems to me so small when held up to the bonfires and furnaces of the world’s needs. Yet, I am trusting that with each one I light with blessing, there will be love shone, wisdom made clear, discernment seen for those in its periphery. The words of George Sand give me perspective, especially in these times of confusion and acrimony: It is high time that we had lights that are not incendiary torches. Yes, I mean to look for those lights, pass them one, even be one myself!

Through Darkness: Terror and Violence

14 Saturday Dec 2019

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…the land of gloom and deep darkness Job 10:21

What a time this is all around God’s created earth! things not only fall apart, there are streaks of cruelty and violence that are all too visible and audible to all of us across the globe! Darkness of Advent indeed!

So it is a prophetic act I do this week of lighting the candle, not just another Advent candle, but the pink one, the gentle one, that calls us to remember the prophet, Mary, mother of Jesus! It is difficult to separate who she was from all the traditions that have grown up around her over the centuries. Yet from sacred text we can know a few things about her that make her that prophet that she is. She, much more than we, lived in a time of terror and violence all round. She lived in an occupied land, in thrall to the Roman Empire whose modus operandi was terror and violence. She lived without those safety nets in the society, which I, as a white woman of privilege, take for granted–education, insurance, public safety. The challenge that was given to her for her choice by the angel Gabriel was one of great risk. To bear a child was in itself was a risk. To do it unmarried was to risk all kinds of un-peace. And to carry the freight of the angel’s charge–to carry the Son of the Most High–would be enormously daunting! Yet she said yes, not loudly or triumphantly, but with courage and faith.

And so we light our pink candles, gentle, courageous, faithful witnesses to our belief that the violent, oppressive darkness will not overcome the Light! It is very easy to be overwhelmed by the report of violence and oppression in the world. From Washington D.C. to Myanmar to Honduras to the Boko Haram, people are doing egregious harm to other beings made in the image of God. Systems seem to be corrupt and fueled by untruths. Yet with each candle lit, I remember that “the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” John 1:5.

In this third week of Advent I am called to light my gentle light as a witness to that Light that cannot be overcome. It was my joy to hear Sister Joan Chittister this past week call all of us the faith community to speak up for love, justice and peace against the roaring clouds of venality and willful harm and thoughtless cruelty, in the public sphere, in the Church and in the places where we live–calling out violent words, oppressive actions and willful ignorance. She says, following the Prophet Jesus, raised by the Prophet Mary, that in doing this, we will be living prophetic lives of love and laughter! I hope to so this, out of the darkness of Advent!

The Light is Emerging

13 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in illumination, Light, Love, Uncategorized

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from Dale Chihuly, St. Petersburg, FL

I savored the weekend two week ago when we took note of the Feast of St. Brigid and Candlemas. Neither of these is part of my primary tradition of worship, but each of them struck a chord in me, of my longing for Light when the dominating motif is earth and sky seems so dark.

Brigid, the Celtic saint, is known for her keeping the flame alive. When we visited Kildare, we marveled the big space just outside the cathedral where a huge bonfire is created on her Feast Day to celebrate the Light of Christ that she carried, and wants other to keep on carrying. On Candelmas in some traditions, people of faith bring their year’s supply of candles to be used at home or in worship into sacred space to receive a blessing on the Light that will shine from them.

I look around my house and see candles perched in so many places, so that when we settle, we can light them again. Even thought they don’t provide the primary illumination by which we do our work, they are a reminder of the Light that never is put out, the Light that gives warmth, comfort and vision to all of us. As I sit writing this morning, I have lighted a candle next to me to be that reminder. It is a candle, one of a whole train of candles, that has illuminated many sacred conversations in this room, many on my computer, in which the primary focus is looking for Light and how to keep it going when the way ahead seems dark.

Tonight we take a turn into Valentine’s Day, and I am aware once again at how Love is so often the Light that brightens the darkness. I am touched when I am reminded how Love has lightened up my life—generously, gratuitously, sometimes imperfectly, sometimes lavishly, sometimes against all odds. My story is replete with family, friends, teachers, soulmates, who have brought a candle of love to my life–fat pillar candles of grace, tall thin tapers of acceptance, tea lights of laughter and joy, all letting me know that I am loved in one way or another, and all of that Love comes from the Light that never fails.

Outside the impending rain is already glowering, the headlines have heat but no clarity, but here inside our candles are alight, and as I look at them, I am reminded that neither rain nor hysteria can keep me from the Light that lights up my life, and the Love it engenders! Sacred text tells us that that Light is for me, as it was for Brigid, a kind of armor, not so that I can be in denial about the storms–atmospheric, political and interpersonal–but can be a source of energy to light the lights of others who need it. I am grateful for Love! I am grateful for Light! Shine on!

Advent II: More Light Appearing

09 Sunday Dec 2018

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Right after I posted my blog last week, I opened my Facebook to behold one vista after another of sunrises in the east–one Tiepolo sky, one giant swath of golden and peach rays as far as the eye could see, one bright ball of color arising out of a nest of dark and formidable twigs and trees. Light is coming, slowly but surely, sometimes in ways we can’t miss it, other ways in which it suddenly dawns on us. Yet the Light keeps shining, even if I can see it only a little at a time.

As I light my second Advent candle this week, I acknowledge that there is growing Light in my and the world around me. I am amazed at the way the Light kept shining through the ugly dark patches in the world headlines. For almost every reported incident of meanness or narcissism or selfishness, there was another tale of generosity or sacrifice or kindness. Between the notes of honking and shouting and grinding of gears, came the harmonies of Advent and Christmas hymns and parents adoring and protecting their little and big ones! After the blinding cold rains came the double rainbows across the sky! And in these moments of illumination comes Peace.

The One for whom we are waiting is about Peace.That truth challenges me to imagine how I am to be a Maker of Peace in this season, as I get each dollop of Peaceful Light around me. I see that I can bring a peaceful face to a a contentious criticism. I can listen to my tone of voice as I participate in conversations that are querulous or despairing. I can change my posture to one of open-heartedness, arms uncrossed, when I am in a place where aggressiveness and rigidity seems to be the chosen affect of the day. I remember that sacred text which tells me that “the peace of God which surpasses  all understanding will guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus.” With the Light I have been given, I am to be Peace in this season, which gets so captivated by un-Peace, and in this world which is so chaotic as it flings itself around in the dark.

My prayer for myself and for others in this week of Advent is that I would allow the increasing Light to bring more Peace:

Holy One for whom we are waiting, it is hard to wait, especially with the all the hustle and bustle around us, even more so with the never-ending conflict, injustice and callousness in the world that needs our attention and work. Let me be a bearer of your Light that leads to your Peace–for my sake, for the sake of those I love and you have given to me, and for the sake of the world. Amen.

 

 

May Gray

01 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by in beauty, darkness, gratitude, Light, paying attention, shadow, Spirit, Uncategorized

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GreatGrayness

We are accustomed to June gloom in Southern California, but this year we also have had May Gray! The skies are overcast from the time we wake up until midday or beyond. We get an inkling of the intimations of mood that those who live in more northern climes experience, and how it can affect their dispositions with seasonal affective disorder syndrome. It seems symbolic of the times in which we are living as well.

The news is full of doom for the vulnerable and gloom for the faithful who are wounded by the insensitivity and cruelty of others. Headlines are made daily about the disappearance of of familiar places and institutions, and the imagined replacements with something more new and shiny. Lovely, friendly people are stricken with accidents and ailments that are game changers in their daily sojourn. The outlook is not rosy.

One of my favorite children’s books is by Arnold Lobel called The Great Blueness. A wizard lives in a town in which all is gray, covered with the Great Grayness. He is sure that this is a sign that something is wrong, so he descends to his gray cellar to see if he can concoct something that will remedy this. By mixing, probing and experimenting with what he already knows and has, he discovers first blue, then yellow, the red, one at a time, all of which he shares with the town to their amazement and delight. They discover shade and hue, brightness, passion and energy with the diversity of colors. They even find that they can take the colors to mix and discover new colors and shades and tints, bringing variety and contrast. all parts of life that they can experience.

That story has prompted me to dig and delve in my own cellar of provenance, words and images which have been life-saving to me in the past–from sacred texts, from mentors and companions, from practices which I have put aside for awhile. What can I recover and put to use in the Grayness that surrounds me and our world? What mixture of resources can i call on to give me imagination, energy and love to brighten the Grayness in others? I am dusting off my gratitude journal to begin with, prompting me to pay attention every day to the gifts that surround me. I am perusing the Psalms yet another time, finding both voices that articulate the Grayness and voices that bring color to the  Hope that in in process of coming true.

And I learn from the wizard in that Gray Town that color is not mine to hoard and keep for myself alone, but it is to be shared with others, so that they can find their own combination of colors that lightens their Grayness and keeps them going when the gloom seems to be winning. I am so grateful to live in the ages of rapid connection through phone, internet, social media, that allows me to respond to and share with those given to me the colors that have brightness and glory and beauty.

Today turned to June, and I expect we can see some June Gloom on some days. But I feel more hopeful that I can wend my way thought that gloom and the other days with the colorful practices that keep me tethered to the Holy One and keep me energized by the Spirit to share hope and love with others. The Grayness cannot overcome the light ultimately! Thanks be to God!

 

 

 

 

A Mixed Up Lent

24 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by in body, darkness, Lent, Light, presence, Uncategorized

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I am upside down and all turned around this Lent! On the one hand, there are all the traditional calls to introspection (not not too much), to repentance (but not too harsh!), to giving up and self-denial (but doing no harm!). On the other hand, I hear the calls to act, to affirm, to resist, to look for the places where the Light can get in. It did not help me that on Ash Wednesday, the liturgy and focus of which is very clear, it was also Valentine’s Day, for me the anniversary of my first date with my lifetime Beloved, and we were celebrating with sweetness and grace. To add to the confusion was the unbelievable act of terror and violence in Parkland, Florida, not far from where one of my beloveds goes to college. And there was the outpouring of unfiltered opinions and screeds that followed publicly in the aftermath. So where do I plant myself this Lenten season?

I also live in a body with ups and downs, among a people whose bodies have ups and downs. Will I know on a particular day whether I have enough sleep to be able to set out on my Lenten intentions? Will the diagnostic test take me in a different direction than I planned? Will the pernicious and virulent viruses and bacteria swirling around this year pass by me by or land in my throat? On a mundane and frivolous level, what should  I plan to wear day to day–sackcloth and ashes or my dancing shoes?

I have hunkered down to what is basic. Each day I am asking myself: what does my soul need? To stay alive, to go deep, to become closer to the intention of the Holy for me today! And I ask myself: where am I encountering Joy? In breath itself, in creation, in the “littles,” and in the hearts, voices and bodies of those who live their truths unwaveringly. Sacred text grounds me in the constancy of the Holy One; poetry challenges me to find new language for what I believe and continue to believe; mystery stories amuse, divert and give me rest. My soul is refueled with energy and imagination, as I count not only blessings, but wonder and truth and grace.

Then, I am trying to see what the the day holds: a phone call, a change of plans, a lunch re-connection, some quiet reading, a trip to the doctor, a meeting. In each of those I am bringing a consciousness of Holy Spirit accompanying me, nudging me, illuminating me, holding me back. Some days it is a time to share Love–with snacks and coloring, with recommending a book, with listening. Some days it is a day to weep and mourn–with those who weep, with our children, for the grief of the world.

The Singer of Psalms knew the dilemmas: “My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors./Let your face shone upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.” (31:15-16). So each day I awake–rummaging around for soul food, catching the joy as it flies. Either way, whatever I am called to wear, to do, to sing, my heart and schedule are in Loving Hands. For this Lent, ending on another mixed metaphor–Easter and April Fool’s Day–that is enough!

Traveling with Saints

30 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by in gratitude, Light, open heart, saints, Uncategorized

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StPhalleSaints

I am getting ready to honor All Saints Day this coming week, and I usually begin with a litany of saints who have gone before me into the unseen vistas of eternity–family members, teachers. pastors, friends and soul mates, heroines and heroes. But this year I am aware of all the saints with whom I come in contact daily, weekly and episodically. My definition this year of a saint is someone who brings Light (to borrow from Leonard Cohen) though the cracks in everything, cracks of grief, abuse, venality, hopelessness. And there are many!

A few keep popping up:

  • the soloist who gave embodiment to the human grief as she sang “Lacrymosa” from a contemporary Requiem
  • the newly widowed faithful partners as they navigate their way into a new normal with gravity and grace
  • the caregivers who show up to comfort, clean up and be present to those whom they are called to love
  • the neighborhood conscience who keeps us from tripping on sidewalks and losing our mail
  • those who arrive on the doorstep with flowers or coffee bread or just a “hi” when days are bleak
  • the one who always at the drop of a hat says, “Come on in!”
  • the place holder in the pew where she as always sat for years, through pastoral changes, political wrangling and waning societal interest in “religion”
  • the poet who sees, then articulates, the beauty of the created world and calls us to celebrate
  • the persistent one who tenaciously refuses to collapse into despair, even with diminishing strength and agility
  • each one who stands up to bullying, whether it occurs around a dinner table, a private office, or a public arena
  • the writers for hope and justice–in blog, book and op-ed pieces, who keep calling me to Live Into Hope
  • the preacher who faithfully speaks the truth in love–transparently, courageously, in spite of slings and arrows of cranks and critics
  • the children who remain delighted with Halloween, bugs and dogs and soccer games, no matter the weather–political or meteorological
  • and, after Mr. Rogers, the helpers, the ones who see what needs doing and do it, after calamity, after tragedy, in ordinary time.

I am so grateful to be aware of the saints who course around me like a stream of mercy never ceasing, even as I am grateful for the saints who have gone on ahead–who saw in me things I could not see, then allowed me to become all I was meant to be. I am grateful for the saints who always allowed the Light in, no matter the cracks in everything that I could see, without “spiritual bypass,” without rigidity and judgmentalism, without giving up. I intend to be one too!

 

Holy Week

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

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(written for the Lenten Reflection book of Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church, San Francisco)

Holy Week Begins and Ends

Matthew 21: 1-11 and Matthew 27: 11-54

The story arc of the week is dramatic. It begins in grassroots delight as Jesus rides into Jerusalem amidst the crowds cheering, a parade that seems so hopeful and promising. It ends in cowardly and cruel crucifixion of the One that had been celebrated just six days before. Light and darkness in one short week.

So much of our lives consist of the juxtaposition of Light and Darkness. We want to live as children of the Light, but so much Darkness clutters the landscape on a regular basis. A refund check arrives in the same mail as an outstanding bill. A bitter confrontation with a co-worker is followed by as affirming encounter with someone in the community. A crushing election result coexists with an energizing onrush of those who are called and willing to resist, to work for justice and mercy for all. The Holy One is present in all of it.

Janet Morley in her wonderful litany, “For the Darkness of Waiting,” writes:

For the darkness of waiting

       of not knowing what is to come

       of staying ready and quiet and attentive,

       we praise you O God

 

       For the darkness and the light

       are both alike to you.                 (All Desires Known, 1988)

What we witness in Jesus in these texts is that he remained aware of the Mystery we call God both in Light and in the Dark. Whether he was being celebrated or reviled, he never forgot that he belonged to God, and that he was navigating this journey accompanied by the Holy.

I can lose sight of that connection, sometimes in great elation, when I think it is all about me and my wonderfulness; or in great pain and grief, when I lose hope that it will ever end. Jesus walks in Mystery with persistence and grace.

In this Holy Week

-where do I see God’s presence in the celebrations and successes in my life? Do I remember to look?

-how do I witness Holy Presence in times of excruciating pain and disappointment?

-can I learn to trust in the darkness of waiting that in Mystery the Light will shine?

Janet Morley prays:

For the darkness of hoping

       in a world that longs for you,

       for the wrestling and the laboring of all creation

       for wholeness and justice and freedom,

       we praise you O God.

 

       For the darkness and the light

       Are both alike to you.

 

 

 


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