Tag: light

Categories
light sunrise

Light Banishes Darkness

Sunrise over my park but not this morning

This morning there was a sunrise very much like this over my park as I was walking the dogs this morning. What struck me was that all of us said “wow look at the sunrise” and no one said “look at the darkness”. We were all focused on the light.

I think this is what Jesus wants for us all. Not for us to focus on the darkness within us or within our world but he wants us to focus on his light shining and chasing away the darkness.

One of the things my QEC practitioner suggests is to not try and analyse why we feel a certain way – as in not try to look at where it comes from – and to not blame self or others or our past or our memories or whatever, but to change the now. Basically to look at the light of where we are now, to put in those new beliefs and to move on changed and healed.

I think Jesus, Light of the World, wants us to focus on their light, on the new creation we are growing into, and to let go of the darkness; our fears, anxieties, our not “enoughs”, our shoulds and oughts. Basically to let go of guilt and shame and to walk in the freedom and healing that light brings.

As we all know from dog walking as the sun comes up it is much easier to see not only who else is in the park but also to pick up dog poo when it gets lighter. We focus on the light and things are easier.

So even though the days are getting shorter I am going to do my best to focus on the 8 or less hours of daylight we’re getting but also focus on the light that is Jesus even in the dark.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:5

Categories
dark light

Equinox

Beach on Thursday 19th September photographed by myself

Today is Equinox, the day when the hours of daylight are equal to the hours of darkness – or at least would be if it wasn’t pouring with rain here and just looking really bleak and wintery, which is why you get the photo from Thursday when the sun had only been up an hour or so.

My journaling this morning was that we can see equally the light and dark in our world. Sometimes what we really want is it to be all light and wonderful, blissful and good stuff. But life isn’t like that. Though neither is it all darkness, grief, dreariness and gloom.

So my prayers were for our media that can balance their stories of doom, gloom, wars, rumours of wars, death, the lack of care, and show that there are great interventions going on our world to help with climate change, with caring for each other, with peace, with support, with “holding the door open” type of stories.

But also I pray for social media which can be filled with the perfect couple, the perfect children, the perfect life, and so one can be left feeling inadequate, craving something unobtainable, or even not realising the pain the those FB “friends” because they think they can only post the extremes – the huge highs and for some the hidden lows.

I pray that our conversations will be filled with the truth – which is a mixture of light and dark, of coping and struggling, of joy and grief, of wanting to be noticed and of wanting to notice others.

I do think there are times we either try to ignore or overly focus on the dark because we don’t know what to do with it. Our subconscious is still dealing with fairy tales where the dark was where the evil monsters lay and the knight’s job was to defeat the dark. But if there was no dark when would we sleep, when would we dream, when would the plants have time to regrow. We need to darkness of the night, of grief, of sadness, as much as we need to light of day, of growth, of joy.

May today be filled with openness and honesty, truth and love, light and dark in all its facets.

Categories
Feel the seasons March

1st Monday in March

Nothing overly deep or meaningful here. Just wanted to share the joy of March blooming in my local park. I find it exciting and delightful when the trees stop being a solid browny colour and start having these lovely green, pink and/or white tips to them. The sun is rising noticeably earlier and later in the day. Even if I’m not out in it to be able to open the curtains and have my living room flooded with light as I drink my morning cuppa before taking the dog out, or to have that same room still bathed in light as I start to feel ready for my supper is just such a joy. So I thought I would share that joy with you on this first Monday in March.

Categories
signs wisemen

Signs

Taken by myself December 2021

Tonight I’m talking about The Wise men with my youth group. The points I want to look at are SIGNS and GIFTS so I thought I’d post about them.

The other morning the dog and I were out walking before the sun came up. As I looked to the East there was a full moon in a halo of clouds. All the clouds were on fire as they caught the rays of the sun that was still forty odd minutes away from coming over the horizon. This morning was a similar time but much denser cloud cover, and yet I could still see that the some of the clouds were lighter than others where they were again picking up that sun. But if I looked in a different direction then the sky was dark. There was no light at all.

I think the Biblical wise men were wise enough to be looking at the signs that the Jewish believers should have been looking at too. The Shepherds are amazed. They had not been taught about looking for signs. But these people from another land and another religion were looking at signs. They had not prophecies in their religion to tell them about a coming Saviour but they were looking to see what was going on. They were ready when it happened. They were also willing to walk, probably on camel, many hundreds of miles. [Google mapped the distance from Iran to Jerusalem and it is over 2000 miles and could take about 3 weeks – less distance than I thought but still interesting]

So these people took a couple of months out of their lives to journey to a foreign land and back again to worship a king that they had seen in the stars. Amazing.

Do we look for signs now? Or do we wait for someone to tell us? Are we like the learned men with Herod who had to get their prophecies out after the wise men had arrived? Are we willing to spend time looking for something we don’t even know is there but we have a faint inkling? There must have been something that the wise men saw that made them look at other things and come to the conclusion this was worth making a dangerous trek across the desert for.

So as I think about this I have to think am I willing to look at the signs and not just either listen to what I’m told on various forms of media, or just put my head down and not see that the light is coming?

But I also need to be looking in the right direction. As with the rising of the sun if I look a certain way then things look dark but I only need to turn my head sightly and look the other way and things are bright.

Which way will I look? Which way will you look? Which signs will I see? Which signs will you see?

It is all about choice. And Jesus does say about looking to the signs and being ready. [just go to www.biblegateway.com and search “signs”] Are we ready or are we caught in looking the wrong way?

Categories
accepting being me Bible blasphemy church creativity deciding faith God Grace gratitude hope joy light new year

Arise, shine; for your light has come

Today I’m doing a reading in church. Just a regular reading. No performing. Nothing special. I’m now on the reading rota at the church we’ve been going to almost since we arrived here. I like the place, I like the people and I like reading. So of course being me I won’t just say it I’ll put inflections into it and make it lively. Not performing but just being me.

arise-and-shine-for-your-light-has-comeAnd this is why I think this passage, esp the first line is so amazing and I think will be my word for the year. Along with a few others I’m gathering but … what a great start to the year, to sit in church and hear that it is time to Arise and shine. Wow! Especially on this dreary day when the town is shrouded in mist here is God saying “Arise and shine” Wow!

So what does that mean? Well I think it has to come with the second phrase too. “Arise and shine for your light has come.” How can I arise and shine? Because my light has come. How has my light come? Well Isaiah 60 says “and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” What does that mean? Well I think it could mean that actually you have realised who you are and have let the Lord – or wherever you get your strength from – rise upon you.

Without trying to be blasphemous I think you could substitute “Lord” for confidence, for isaiah-angel-smallstrength, hope, reassurance. Almost anything. I really don’t think that one can let the Lord rise upon and around you unless you have confidence in yourself. I know of a friend who went through an awful tragedy but I can hear her sobbing “Just one touch of the King changes everything” but she had to let herself be touched for Him to be able to change everything.

If we can be willing to believe that, even though it is dark and misty outside, even though 2017 is looking like being a worrying year, we are able to arise and shine and let your light shine then we can be part of changing things. We can let our assurance, confidence, strength, hope rise and so shine light into this year.

The passage goes on to say about how the world is in darkness but that people will come to the light. We are not be inert but by worrying, being anxious, being fearful we hold the darkness in place but if we go with confidence knowing that we can do our bit to bring light to our sphere of influence then those in need will be drawn to us.

hpim0765It always takes me a while to get into the fact that its a new year. Others around me come with resolutions that they can present at midnight on 2016/17 but I need a run up to it and some thinking time. So for me though I will put aside worry and also put aside false hope and I will arise. I will shine. I will let my light shine in my spheres of influence. This is my resolution for 2017.

Categories
accepting allthingsarenew being me change faith friendship glorifyingGod Grace Jesus life light lightonahill Love mindfulness

Light on the Hill

red sunset in the mountains on a black background

This is inspired by a comment from a group we have been invited to, which meet on a Thursday evening just round the corner from our house.

We had been reading John 17, about how Jesus prays for himself and for his disciples before he died and a discussion about evangelising followed. Some in the group are definitely evangelists. Me, I’m not really. My evangelism comes from blog posts like this that question things and, hopefully by my life and the way I’ve hung on in there with God through what has gone on. I’m not one to go out and tell people I meet about Jesus. I admire people who do though.

So the discussion has got on to evangelising and someone said “we need to be like a light on a hill. Let our light shine” and then they said “and die to self” and that is what struck me. If homebanner-its_not_about_me1we die to ourselves, to our own wants, needs, expectations, even wanting to see others come to know Jesus, then we can truly shine. We can stop doing things because we want some form of recognition or someone to fulfil our needs.

But also in this chapter Jesus prayed that people would know his followers by their love for each other. And it was this that struck me – I can only really truly love someone if I die to myself and my needs, wants, likes and dislikes. If I die to myself then I can love people who are not like me, who are not people I would normally want to be seen with, etc.

It was was interesting because we were all moving into the whole thing of just having a bit of moan about church organisation, and about hurts we had sustained within churches, and just almost saying how we would do it better. Though there were times when it was “let’s not talk about them but about us” which was good. And in fact I should bring it closer; “let’s not talk about us but about me.” Yes I know we need to stop looking at what How I loveJesus did as individual salvation and much more about corporate salvation but actually I can only change me and how I look at the world, how I react to the world. So if I die to self and then love others unconditionally there is much more of a chance of me being able to look at things corporately because I will no longer worry about whether someone in my “pack” does something I will be embarrassed about.

In fact if I “die to self” I will be able to be comfortable in who I am, what I believe, etc and will not worry about the God other believe in. As Karen Armstrong says in “History of God” we do all actually believe in a different God. That is not to say God is made up but because He is multifaceted we all all see Him slightly differently. But if I am too concerned about how someone else sees God then actually I have not died to self because in fact, deep inside, I am worried about what others thinks. If I have died to self I can let others believe in God how He has revealed Himself to them, which will be different to how He has revealed Himself to me – and you know, that’s ok.

So to be that light on the hill means to be totally transparent, to lGlowing personet the Light of God shine in and through me. It will mean I will care for others as God cares for them which i
s often in a very different way to how I would care/love them.

Categories
accepting being me belief faith glorifyingGod life light Love mindfulness perspective relational shared blog walking the dog

In Different Light

abergele-2000-si-panton-r00322582x
It’s the tall post behind the cafe that I registered for the first time yesterday

I think this part of my journey is about perspectives and today I have been thinking about different lights. The joy of living by the seaside, especially in Britain, is that the sky is always changing and the light is different every day. Yesterday I was walking, a walk I do most mornings, and saw a tall structure that I am sure I had never seen before. On closer inspection it had been there for a while. It was a tall street light!

When I look out to see some days I will see the wind turbines, other days not; some days a few of them, other days lots of them. Yesterday there was an amazing bank of cloud just behind them so that it looked like they were at the bottom of a cliff. The other day the cloud was around their bases so all that could be seen was the blades. The light on my walk

pensarn20quay
where the rain goes

and on my view has very little to do with what the weather is. Where we live often the clouds pass over us to rain on Snowdonia National Park. We are in what is called a “rain shadow” which seems a silly name. I think it should be a “rain’s bypass” 🙂

But the more I thought of light the more I could see that it is to do with what is being revealed, that different place of standing, that different perspective. And I can choose whether I notice or don’t. I can get caught in my own thoughts and miss what the light is doing for today. I have to choose to look, to observe, to remember, and then actually to let it go. No day is better or worse than the other. Each day has its own light – a lot or a little. I have to choose to enjoy the lack of light when the storm clouds are gathering, as much as I enjoy the bright light wishing I had got around to buying those sunglasses.

Glowing personVelveteen Rabbi talked of our light in “Letting Your Light Shine” in which she expounds how before Adam and Eve ate the apple they were just light and that God had to cloth them with skin after they had sinned to conceal their light. As I read it in the context of the journey I am on and with other things I am exploring within in my understanding of God, we can now almost choose how much light we reveal and also how much light we see in others. There are days when I am walking with God and I know that people see His light, or rather my true God-image light, shining through, whereas there are other days when my light is well and truly hidden. I suppose that goes back to the sermon I heard on Sunday about getting rid of habits and hurts so that we reflect God. And actually I think that is what we should be going – reflecting God – rather than trying to “be good Christians”. It’s up to Him not me. I just need to make the space and let the light shine.

But also I can choose how I view the light in others. I can choose how I want to view them.4355a8803ddad25cf59dedb89c2f1a10 And people will give out a little light or a lot but I can miss both if I am not really looking. As with the different skies each day on my walk, that I can choose whether I engage with or not, I can do the same with people. I can choose to engage with them and maybe then, like the the tall street light, see  something in them that I had not seen before even though I had known them a long time.

And often that means we need to let go of past hurts from that person – or who that person reminds us of 🙂