"In the Lord... You Are LIght"

"I pray for the desire to pray and meditate on behalf of my community of faith.  May we learn patience, tolerance, gentleness, compassion and empathy.  May we abstain from anger, anxiety, discouragement, compulsive behaviour, and shame.  May we know and follow Jesus more closely, seeking justice, loving kindness and walking humbly."


Ephesians 5:8-14
⁸For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— ⁹for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. ¹⁰Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. ¹¹Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. ¹²For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; ¹³but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, ¹⁴for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
‘Sleeper, awake!
   Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.’


1) "...in the Lord, you are light;" "...children of light;" "...good and right and true;" "...visible;" "...everything... visible is light;" "...rise from the dead;" "...Christ will shine on you;" "...live as children of light;" "...once you were in darkness;" "...in the Lord you are light;"


2) What does it mean to be "in the Lord?"  It is opposed to our previous experience of being in darkness.  Do we understand ourselves as having been in darkness... do we even know the difference between darkness and light?  Perhaps there is the rub?  We don't know our light from our darkness.  Traditions that talk about "being saved" are clear about what they were saved from and for.  What is our darkness?  What is light for us?  We move about in a fog of trusting that God has been good to us, but perhaps not as clear as we could be.  I do know darkness.  I remember.  I remember loneliness and isolation.  I remember the closet.  I remember self-denial and a complete failure of self-identity and self-esteem.  I remember loss and searching for meaning and purpose.  AND, I know that those things passed.  It isn't as clear as "then and now."  Certainly I still have bad days, weeks, months.  But even on my worst days, I know and trust that I am connected to more than I can imagine.  I know there is meaning and purpose for me, even when I don't currently perceive it.  I know that with a few still breaths, I can return to peace, awe, wonder and connection to the Sacred and the Holy. I know that I'm free of the closet, I have a powerful sense of who I am and what I have to offer.  I am a child of light.  I have always been a child of light, but now I know it and often, I even experience it.  And all this in "light" of what I have said previously about "Lord" being night language for "What is."  "The Lord" is absolutely present, in fused and accessible to, from and for all that is.


3) What is the invitation in all this? To help others identify their own movement from darkness into light.  to help us accept and embrace the movement of good days, bad days, better day and worse days and to trust that they are all embraced by the God of light. 


"Holy One, shine on us."


Breathprayer: "In the Lord... you are light."