A light in the darkness

Always, our darkness contains a seed of light
that struggles to grow into brightness.
Evil so hungers for good that often
it will consume itself in its longing.
For light is the truth of all existence.
     - Joy Cowley

Our life has its seasons, and God has the reasons
why spring follows winter, and new leaves grow,
for there’s a connection with our resurrection
that flowers will bud after frost and snow,
so there’s never a time to stop believing,
there’s never a time for hope to die,
there’s never a time to stop loving,
these three things go on.
     - Shirley Murray

Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
(1 Corinthians 13:13)

I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour
and fragrance of a flower – the Light in my darkness,
the Voice in my silence.
     - Helen Keller

I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look
up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will
change for the better, that this cruelty too will end,
that peace and tranquillity will return once more.
     - Anne Frank

May the blessing of light be on us, light without and
light within.
     - Celtic

Holy Week 2011

I thank you for becoming weak, Lord Jesus,
so I don’t have to be strong.
I thank you for being willing to be considered
imperfect and strange,
so I do not have to be perfect and normal.
I thank you, Jesus, for being willing to be disapproved of,
so I do not have to try so hard to be approved and liked.
I thank you for being considered a failure,
so I do not have to give my life trying to pretend I’m a success.
I thank you for being wrong
by the standards of religion and state,
so I do not have to be right anywhere, even in my own mind.
     
From Hope Against Darkness by Richard Rohr, p. 38

Light

When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.

I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light in to dark places where the sun would never shine - in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light - truth, understanding, knowledge - is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.

I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of me - and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of life.

Quoted by Robert Fulghum, It was on Fire when I Lay Down On It

Our greatest fear

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

- Marianne Williamson
(sometimes (incorrectly) ascribed to Nelson Mandela)