*Throughout the season of Lent I have been challenging myself to undertake a practice of written prayer. I've not been successful every day in writing out prayers but I thought I would share the prayerful reflection that I wrote today.
Light. Light dawns in the morning. Its rays warm the earth, causing a rush of hopeful growth. It energizes us, entering through our skin and eyes, so that every part of us can know we are alive and feeling. And so we are brought to an awareness of everything around us and offered the opportunity to participate in the experience of what is beautiful. The sun shines on both righteous and corrupt, on both rich and poor. God, your grace is in the light. Your love is in the light. Your corrective consequence is in the light - that in our greed it might burn its memory into us or scorch the very things it nourished. If we can take in the rays of your light, might we also transform and grow? Might we also feel the fire ignite within us as the underbrush clogging our souls is lit to the point where we may feel that we are being consumed? There is both safety and risk in the light. God, you are not a safe God. You are in the light.
And, this is not all of you.
Rain. Clouds cover the sky dimming the light and rain pours over the earth, refreshing places that the sun has scorched, encouraging growth in equal measure. Rain is available around us yet we may choose to not partake in its sensations. Nonetheless it offers us its gifts. It nourishes deep places; it echoes and sanctifies the melancholic. In nature's act of weeping there is joy, there is healing. Yet at times the rain torrents down and we who were not prepared are confronted by the floods, learning in these moments the lack of safety we find in our structures and what safety we can find in supporting one another. Your mercy is in the rain. You love is in the rain. Your urge for cooperation and unity, for the discovery of a common humanity is in the rain. Some may try to separate themselves from these gifts, but Lord, your rain still falls around them, inviting them to participate in that melancholic flow that pushes us through discomfort into connection. There is both joy and sadness in the rain. God, you are not one-dimensional in your presence. You are in the rain.
Through light, rain and darkness you prompt us into seasons of change.
Dark. Dark comes at night, that absence of light as the world is coated in a hush of obscurity. There is quiet in the dark and stillness as we are called into a pause. Here we hear the sounds that were ignored in the light: the worries, the threats to safety, the pangs of loneliness, the aches of the soul. Our vision becomes limited and we feel the urge to find our hearth, that place of security that we call home. The dark makes us aware of our vulnerability and our limits. In the experience of this humility, we are given greater opportunity to encounter the illumination that is immaterial, that which comes from you. God, you are in the dark. Your still small voice speaks in the dark. You offer us love in the dark as we become confronted with our weakened states. You call us to rest, and in doing so we become restored and prepared once again to face the light. Maybe we bring in artificial light and sound to crowd out the discomfort we feel in the darker places, but your dark remains there beckoning us to participate, to take that plunge into vulnerability and stillness and find a strength that transcends our acts of doing. Yes, there is both fear and courage in the dark, vulnerability and strength. God, you are mystery, both known and unknown, and it is in the darkness that our humanity meets your divine presence. Within the darkness, the mystery of the unknown becomes our place of rest. It is in the darkness that the material and the sacred meet.
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