In this season of Christmas, as in every Christmas season, we hear a great deal about light. I never thought much about it until this season, I usually hear the words and let them go by as the days wind down to the Feast of the Nativity and then fade into the New Year. This year it meant more, and I think it meant more because I heard someone speaking about it on the radio in a way that I had not thought about it before.
I am not certain who it was, the person speaking about light, so I won't try to quote them and give credit because I may credit the wrong person. But it went like this: The darkness that exists in the world is far reaching, in fact, darkness is everywhere that light is not, by definition. But as prevalent as it may seem, darkness is never powerful enough to overcome light. Light always wins the struggle, effortlessly it appears- darkness simply cannot withstand the presence of light.
This little metaphor is so powerful in its application. If one accepts the definition of God as the pure light, the source of light, the creator of light, then darkness is the absence of God. What happens when there is no God? I have seen the answer to this in my own life, in the times when I attempted to replace God with other sources of energy- money, people, intoxicants- those times were like living in a dark closet, feeling my way around in a very small world cut off from my self and from all that I knew to be good. Darkness is a place where only those who hate the light are bound to live, preying on the light of others for their sustanence.
As I listened to the man on the radio, I realized that light does not happen on its own- physical or spiritual. Light only happens as the result of the expenditure of energy. Substances or particles are involved in a reaction, often violently, and the result is energy released as light. (I am no physicist, but I think I am on the right track here). The light in our homes is the result of electrons being pushed around in wires by huge generators forcing them to find a point of release. And so on. Coming out of the darkness also involves a violent reaction of some kind, a realization, a letting go, something that the ego and the id do not want to have happen. At the end of that struggle is light.
It is the same with me. Light only comes into my life when I take positive action to open up my heart and mind to the power being pushed around the universe by God, the mystical generator. I have to accept it and consciously keep the circuit open to keep it flowing within me. Jesus, the light of God who became flesh and walked among us, is God's light in this world. That other energy, the self indulgent energy so powerful at first, burns dimly and bathes one's mind and soul in the amber glow of what pleases in the moment. Jesus is for all time.
For 2015, I am resolving to keep that light burning bright, to open myself to the flow of energy from Jesus that is love in its purest form. It is source of clean, renewable energy, and it is abundant.