Tuesday, August 5
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
—1 John 1:5
That sounds ridiculous, I know.
But several years ago while in Ireland, I looked out the window in the late afternoon and was blown away. The sunset was falling upon the land of green and shade, shadow and solitude, and light fell across my soul as if for the first time. Something that had been in my life since my first gasp for air had gone unnoticed, unappreciated, unknown. I took flight into the light.
We take light for granted. But when we pause and consider the soft caresses of the beams as they flow across the land, we begin to see God’s world anew. The nuances of creation become evident when we notice the shades of yellow, gold, and amber as they float across a leaf, the grass, a rock, or the shore.
It’s no mistake that God separated the light from the darkness in creation. God was giving us the gift of light so that we could grasp the work of the divine artist. God is exposing the palette of creation to us every day—if we choose to notice.
Try opening yourself to the light today. Go outside when you finish reading this meditation or look out the window.
What do you see? Notice the shadows, the changes in color, places where the light is brighter. What is new? What have you not noticed before? And then look at the same spot later in the day. How has it changed? How does the movement of light reveal something deeper, something metaphorical?
Take the time to notice the gift of God’s light—the gift of God’s palette in creation.
Open my eyes to discover light in my own life, that through the simplicity of the sun and shadow I might see my place within God’s creation anew. Amen.
The Signposts for August are written by Michael Sullivan and originally appeared on explorefaith in 2006.
