The Coming of The Light

I recently spent three days in silence, in the woods, reconnecting with my center. It's been a hard Autumn...lots of tangible suffering around me, around all of us, really. There’s no need to recount the personal and collective sorrows of the last few months; the news alone suffices as a litany of suffering and woe. United Beings as we are, we share in them all whether we know it or not.

Yet I am constantly amazed at how much Light there is in the midst of darkness. As December deepens, and Solstice arrives, I am pondering the multitude of ways in which each of us brings or could bring greater light into the darkness, illuminating whatever corner of this planet we inhabit. This is what it means to live in hope…to believe in and see the Light in and around us, especially in the midst of darkness. All is well, right now. That’s the virtue of Hope.

Many spiritual traditions, including my own, engage beautiful rituals at this time of Solstice in both hemispheres, rituals designed to remind us that we are Light, and that the Light always overcomes the darkness.

I think sometimes we just are unsure of how to do this...to Be Light. We long for what is not, little realizing that the Light is alive and well and radiant in each and every one of us, an energy longing for liberation and birth into the world.

I am thinking of all of the people who have brightened my world recently, some intentionally, some without even knowing it. They spring from a variety of spiritual and ethical traditions. Some are practitioners of particular religions. Others embody the Dalai Lama's observation that "My religion is kindness". All of them have accessed their own inner Light in one way or another and shined it brightly on me; I am grateful, and transformed.

There is more light in me, and so in the world, because of them.

And I am convinced that this ability to live out of the Light we embody is what will save us from fear and all its malignant offspring: hatred, intolerance, war, violence, exclusion. There is so much personal and communal illumination in our world. A Facebook friend posted a remarkable story about his childhood synagogue joining with a mosque and a Christian church to build a religious center that will be used by all three faith communities. Here is love overcoming fear. In the midst of the current climate of religious extremism, and bigotry, this story strikes me as so much more than lighting the proverbial candle: it’s the birth of a small Sun.

I agree with Carl Jung's observation that the only thing he knew was that what he believed in the morning, he might not believe in the afternoon. Our lives change so quickly; every new experience is just a reminder that there is so much we do not yet know. It is humbling, and requires great courage, to be human, to grow, to struggle to remove  the blinders and obstacles we have to accessing and igniting our own Light.

But this I do believe: we are all bearers of the Divine, whether we call that Light God, Jesus, YHWH, Allah, Buddha, Source, Hu, or I AM. And that Light is accessible to us, in us. We can birth it into the world, today, this minute, overcoming the darkness.

My heart's longing in this Season of Peace and Light, is that we will celebrate our holy seasons together, shining our Lights on each other. Concretely. Intentionally. Together we can illuminate each others’ lives.

What if we all make a conscious commitment to Being Light? What is your best and highest understanding of how you can midwife and birth your own Light into our shadowed world? Act on it. Do Something, just one thing, that fully expresses your belief. Be generous. Be loving. Be kind. Be Light.

Let’s Rejoice, My Friends, and be the Light shining in the darkness. Let’s shine on each other…be the Incarnation of Light and Love. We are illuminating the whole world, one Light at a time. Soon, and very soon, even this very moment: the day breaks, and the shadows flee.