It’s Always Been About the Light

In my new, slower life, I pay more attention to the light. I somehow feel like that’s my job now: Light Watcher. This morning it started with a pink and blue light show sunrise, horizontal stripes alternating boldly across our January sky. It changed the light everywhere. Even when I looked in the opposite direction, the air was lit up pink, just for a few minutes. Then, it changed.

When I walk every day, I watch the light. I pay attention to how it plays on the fallen leaves, the water and bounces off trees and the pathway.

In my house, I now know the difference between the morning light and the warm way the light falls in the afternoon.

My dog always gravitates to the light. She will give up her dog bed if there is a just right golden light radiating on a rug, on the deck or in the yard.

Christians are now in the season of Epiphany. It is one of the more low-key, least understood of the Christian observances. I love it because we don’t over do it, over decorate it or over sing it. It’s more like every year we arrive at Epiphany and have to teach ourselves all over again what it means.

Epiphany reminds us that it has always been about the light. Starlight that leads us to something new and just born. Aha or light bulb moments that reveal something to us.  Epiphany is a manifestation of the divine. I find that often those manifestations are subtle, elusive, there and then not…like light playing off of the leaves, the water, the sky or our path.

We find ourselves saying, “Did I just glimpse God?  Was that the Divine in that pink sky? In that ray of sun, the moonlight, the starlight?  We love holding our candle of light on Christmas eve but its more than that, it’s about light all day, every day and through the night.

I find myself praying light for people I love…healing light, awareness light, comforting, warm light. I’m praying light for our country in these uncertain, uncomfortable times of transition. I pray to be the light. I pray to be aglow with it.

One time I was trying to describe to someone the essence of Christianity. I found myself fumbling for words. In the end, all I could tell him was this: “You know how it says in scripture that Jesus is the light of the world?” He nodded and said, “I’ve heard that.” I told him falteringly, “That is it…the whole thing. I don’t know why it is not in all caps,  boldface type, highlighted. It is the whole thing. It’s always been about the Light.” He looked at me confused. Light is so elusive, so changing, so real but words seem inadequate to capture it.

For Christians the season of Epiphany continues until Lent begins. Watch the light with me. Speak of light. Pray for light. Be light.