that dispels the darkness

There is a certain rhythm and flow to every life, unique unto itself; every measured beat differs from the one that came before, and only God can play its melody. It is our own arrogance and conceit that fills us, fills us with everything but God, and propels us to create God in our own image. We cry out in wonder and mystery that God has forsaken us, abandoned us when we need Him most. But has He?

You are the light of the world

The fourteenth century mystic, Meister Eckhart, tells us that “God is in the soul with His nature, with His being, and with His Godhead, and yet God is not the soul.” Your soul is yours alone, created for you by God, forever filled with God, but never God. God never leaves us, but we often leave God.

Henry David Thoreau wrote “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” We live our lives desperately searching for the false gods of fame and fortune, we fill ourselves with the world and all its seductive, yet empty promises, in a vain attempt to find God within ourselves, and always we come away empty, wanting more and more, always more. We never recognize that we are God’s song, a song too often left unsung.

Meister Eckhart wrote that “I pray God to rid me of God” by which he prays for God’s forgiveness and help in ridding himself of his own self-centered perceptions, his flawed human image of God. We all have a personal image of God and we all too readily try to conform that image to our own, when even a cursory review of the first page of the bible would quickly dismiss that notion. “Then God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” [Gn 1:26] and a short verse later “God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them” [Gn 1:27].

When we fill ourselves with everything but God, we empty ourselves of God. Darkness envelops us and hides all our imperfections; it hides the truth that lives only in the light. We bury the light that is the inner beauty, truth, and goodness of God with created things that are not God.

We each have had moments when our faith and devotion to God were less than ought to be; moments spent in anger, doubt, frustration, anxiety, fear, arrogance or pride. It is tempting to live in darkness, away from the transparency that comes when we expose the interior to the light. To live in the light means to live openly, honestly, transparently, with nothing hidden, with no deception or guile.

John Chrysostom taught that the light “… illuminates also the beholder’s mind and soul. It disperses the darkness of evil, and invites those who encounter it to let their own light shine forth, and to follow the example of virtue…. Let your virtue, the perfection of your life, and the performance of good works inspire those who see you to praise the common Master of us all. And so I beg each of you to strive to live so perfectly that the Lord may be praised by all who see you.”