“let there be light

and there was light”

light light light

everywhere light

spilling

shining

breaking open the most

secret places

singing:

“flourish!

flourish!

all of you

flourish!”

sometimes light comes in inklings, barely graspable glimmers, crumbs of insights leading us, leading us on and out, journeys Spiritward. sometimes it comes in sweeping waves, moments so clear our lives change in a moment. i love the passage from Isaiah that says, “precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” the littles, even the littles…cherish the littles…build, grow, move, embrace, stretch, yearn, reach, soar.

Mary Baker Eddy puts it beautifully in this way: “When angels visit us, we do not hear the rustle of wings, nor feel the feathery touch of the breast of a dove; but we know their presence by the love they create in our hearts. Oh, may you feel this touch, — it is not the clasping of hands, nor a loved person present; it is more than this: it is a spiritual idea that lights your path!”

one of my most cherished moments of light happened the summer after high school. this poem was written a few years ago for my friend Sally:

we are at the dead end

in a station wagon

looking out the window for a sunset,

the lake pushing up against the sky.

i am railing once again against my life;

injustices of disappointments

having decided

how things ought to be and aren’t.

you are a fine-tuned ear

drinking in the words

but not sinking in my sorrow

your gaze takes me

out beyond the sky and lake

and road of gravel

you are leading me on a journey of air

out beyond this yearning

out beyond the throws of despair

out we go

catapulted by the splitting of sky before us

the sky

the sky is breaking open

and in between the light and water and air

there is a hovering i have hoped for

but have not seen

this is heaven.

the shattering of doubt

the consummation of hope

you and me

sitting in a station wagon

at the end of one long dirt road

in a sea of infinity

**********************************

Sara Grove’s song “Something Changed” says it so well:

“Something changed inside me broke wide open all spilled out
Till I had no doubt that something changed

Never would have believed it till I felt it in my own heart
In the deepest part the healing came

And I cannot make it
And I cannot fake it
And I can’t afford it
But it’s mine

Something so amazing in a heart so dark and dim
When a wall falls down and the light comes in

And I cannot make it
And I cannot fake it
And I can’t afford it
But it’s mine”