Dear Kaleid Ladies,
How are you today? Is there a rhythm returning to your New Year life, or are you stuck, waiting for Covid to release its grip again, so that you can have a rhythm?
Last week we got excited about the Epiphany gift of revelation, where the light of Jesus’ life reveals God. And so, we’re going to take a few weeks to consider some qualities of light.
We find it simply amazing that Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” and he said, “You are the light of the world.” We are amazed that God gave us the gift of sharing this light-quality with Jesus. We are amazed that God graciously gives light to us and through us in our dark world.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to give you some simple reflections and prompts to help you marinate in the reality of God’s light around you, in you, and through you.
Reflection - Light Is Orienting
When was the last time you took a walk while the sun was rising or setting on a clear day? Do you recall noticing the movement of the sun or suddenly realizing the direction you were walking?
When was the last time you got cozy early on a very short winter day or reveled in the lingering light of a long summer evening?
Genesis 1:1-5 says, “First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.
God spoke: ‘Light!’
And light appeared.
God saw that light was good
and separated light from dark.
God named the light Day,
he named the dark Night.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day One.”
Light is good. At least one reason why light is so good is that it is orienting. The natural lights—sun, moon, stars—help us to know what direction we are headed. They give us the beginnings and endings of our days. They work with the earth to give us seasons with long sunbeams and lush growth and those with long shadows and quiet dormancy.
God’s first day of creation, the light day, is the day when things begin to be oriented. With light came days, seasons, and years. Nature’s light gives us the gifts of direction and time. Most of the time we are oblivious to the orienting gift of light. It’s so much a part of our reality that we don’t even pause to consider a life without light rhythms and light directions.
Some Light Prompts for You
Today, as you move through your Wednesday, perhaps you can spare time to take a walk. To look at the sun in the sky or to notice the darkness that fell early. To consider how Jesus is your orienting light, giving order and direction and rhythm to your sometimes chaotic or formless experience of life. To think about how the constancy and the rhythms of your sacred, redeemed life offer orientation to those around you.
Or maybe you have time to sit quietly for five minutes today and to read Genesis 1:1-5. As you do, offer thanks to God for the way that God orients the natural world and that Jesus has oriented your life, allowing you to inhabit God’s faithful rhythm of grace and truth.
Or maybe you just need a poem to remember the wonder of being a bearer of light today.
Bearing the Light
by Denise Levertov
Rain-diamonds, this winter morning,
embellish the tangle of unpruned pear-tree twigs;
each solitaire, placed, it appears, with considered judgement,
bears the light beneath the rifted clouds -
the indivisible shared out in endless abundance.
We are thankful for you!
Gratefully,
The Kaleid Team