Hello
Friends.
This
weekend I was blessed to be able to go on a little hike with my buddy Bert AND
I brought along my gal pal Belle. It was
a special time with friends. Of course
you know that I spend time each week at Bert's place. I spend time with Belle too, butt not every
week. Belle and I have been friends for
a long time, and a lot of our time has been spent camping, backpacking and
hiking. So to have my two Golden friends
with me on my Birthday weekend was extra special. As we hiked along it might have been cloudy
butt now and then the light shined through and I saw the colors of the rocks
and the surroundings that I think others might have just over looked thinking it just a gray overcast day.
What’s
your favorite color? Is it more 450? Or do you tend towards 600? Maybe even
700? In case those numbers don’t
immediately mean anything to you, on the visible spectrum scale for light 450
nanometers means “blue,” 600 is yellow, and at 700 nanometers you are seeing
red.
But
we don’t “see” numbers, do we? We see the beautiful, variable,
illuminating colors that light takes on as it is refracted and reflected before
our eyes. We don’t experience nanometers. We bask under a blue sky don't we? Or
we bath in wonder at the beauty of a sunset that melts from orange to red to
crimson and purple. Whether we catalogue light as 550 nanometers or perceive it
as “green” is all a matter of perspective. Are we dissecting the idea of “light”
into its most basic components (measured nanometers)? Or are we responding to
the expression of that light as we experience it in the world (colors)?
In
Matthew’s account of the “Sermon on the Mount,” immediately after Jesus lays
out his “blessed be” Beatitudes, he lifts up two metaphors of how disciples of
the kingdom will be known to this world. They will be the “salt of the earth,”
they will be the light of the world,” a light that will “shine before others.”
Salt sharpens flavors. Light sharpens both sight and insight. Jesus is calling
would-be followers of the kingdom to sharpen lives by living on the sharp, the
cutting edges, the places where new perspectives, new tastes, and new visions
are embraced.
Light
does not just banish darkness and illuminate corners and crevices. Light also
works to provide a new perspective — to put our experiences and perceptions
into “a new light.” To be a disciple of Jesus, of the kingdom of God, is not
just to be a focused beam of light at some measurable nanometer with laser-like
narrowness and intensity. To be the “light” that Jesus challenged his disciples
to be also means to continually put a new light, a new perspective, on all the
world, to willingly “change up” the “game plans,” the “paradigms,” that we are used
to living by every day.
Jesus’
description of the kingdom of God, where the “blessed” are the poor in spirit,
the mournful, the meek, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the child-like, shifts
our focus and redirects our “light.” The Beatitudes force us to stop looking at
some “big picture” of marketable success, a collective to be conquered, and
instead look at others as singular and significant, an individual to be
embraced.
This
is what Jesus calls each of us to do: to see others as he sees them. This
is the new perspective that Jesus-light gives disciples: we direct our thoughts
and tasks, our compassion and love, to individuals with names, not institutions
or instruments with numbers.
Jesus
light helps us to see others as they really are. That change in perspective changed
everything. People who are hungry need to be fed. Kids who have no place to
sleep need a safe place to lay their heads. Seeing the reality of what
individuals are dealing with in their lives helps us focus the light of our
faith on their immediate needs, not our own long-term goals.
The
Jesus light also illumines new insights, puts a new light on old perceptions,
but it also banishes old shadows and those blackened corners of our lives. The
light of Jesus lets us see what we could be. What God is calling us to be. What
is completely transformable in our lives. We are called to be a light for the
world. We are also invited to immerse ourselves and transform ourselves in that
new light, that new vision of possibilities and perspectives.
No
child should have the blank pages of their life filled up with the forbidding
text of a story that is over before it has begun, a book that opens only to
shut, already weighted down to close by the burdens of birth, breeding and
bias.
Jesus
did not just want his disciple to see others as they really are — that was only
the first step. The disciple who truly embraces Jesus light, who sees his new illumination
on this world, is the person who sees others as Jesus saw them. Jesus never saw
anyone as a sinner, only as a sufferer. Jesus never saw anyone as someone who
had fallen short, but as someone who needed help to cross the finish line.
Jesus did not condemn. Jesus cured.
The
world would totally change, if this one beautiful thing
were put into practice: if we would only see others as Jesus sees them.
If we all saw each other as Jesus sees us, then we would see everyone we meet
as a beloved child of God.
You
are the light. So shine. Let your beautiful light shine, see others
for who they are, for who they are created to be. For they are light just like you. They maybe a blue (450) and you maybe be red
(700) butt it takes all those colors to make up a rainbow my friends, so shine shine shine.
Blessings,
Goose
