It’s dark when I wake up this time of year. Very dark, especially where we live, in the cloudy northwest, in the forest, in a place with no street lights. I have an office outside the house and to get there I need to go out the back door, descend a dozen often icy stairs, navigate toward the office, ascend the five stairs there, punch in the combination for door entry, go inside, and then turn on a light.
Because a tree needed to be cut on our property earlier this summer, my wife cut the top off and we set it up on my office deck as an outdoor Christmas tree. There are no ornaments, but I put lights up. It was getting dark as I sat and looked at the tree while listening to the Poor Sisters of Claire ‘Winter Meditation’ album, a hauntingly beautiful rendition of O Come O Come Emmanuel, which fits perfectly with the rapidly encroaching darkness enveloping the forest.
‘This’ I think to myself, ‘is our world.’ It seems that darkness is ever encroaching, at least for some groups of people. One season it’s Ukrainian civilians before a bomb shatters their apartment, or family, or life. Another day its a host of Palestinians in a hospital, while the month before it was folks at a Kibbutz living and celebrating until terrorists inflicted murder, and rape, and kidnapping. Then there’s the darkness of American fragmentation because, no matter who you voted for, you’re struck with the realization that somewhere near half the country not only disagrees with you, but sees your way of looking at the world as dangerous. Darkness is encroaching on people on the margins, the undocumented immigrants who work and pay taxes, though here illegally and stuck in a broken immigration system, there’s darkness. The lights have gone out on the rising numbers displaced every year by ‘once in a century’ or ‘once in a millenium’ fires or floods, and others displaced by automation and AI. I could go on for a thousand words just like this, but you get the point. If you take the time to turn over a few rocks, you quickly realize that lots of people sense an encroaching darkness, and aren’t sure what to do about it.
This past month I had a dream one night that I was in an Austrian forest I knew fairly well, but that it was the middle of the night, and pitch black, snowing hard and winds whipping up drifts, freezing my face, and making movement impossible. I was shivering, and feeling an increasing sense of surrender to my impending death by hypothermia when I heard the Sisters of Claire singing, ‘Rejoice! Rejoice!’ over and over again, until then I also saw three angels of light who came to me, warmed me with their presence, and then took me by the hand and led me to the warmth and shelter of a hut, where hope and health and joy slowly poured back into my soul.
Now, weeks later, as the darkness settles on my tiny piece of the Cascade forest, the presence of the tree lights becomes a symbol of my calling, perhaps yours too, in the days, weeks, and years ahead. I determine in that moment to leave the lights on 24/7 at least until Epiphany (which, ironically, is January’s 6th). Until then, whenever I see those lights out there, shining the nearly constant darkness that is November through Christmas, I am reminded of my calling.
‘You are the light of the world’ is the way Jesus put it, and then he went on to point out the folly of covering a light that’s shining rather than letting it do what it was made to do, which is to shine in darkness so that clarity, security, hope, and beauty can be seen and absorbed, so that light can bring life.
One of the ways I’m called to bring light in this season is by investing some time to teaching and writing about ethics because, to be blunt, its not our doctrinal statement, our political affiliation, our economic capacity, or our national identity that determines the luminosity and light-bearing capacity of our lives; its our ethics. There were pastors and witch doctors who did the right thing in Rwanda by saving Tutsis from genocide, even as there were pastors who invited Tutsis into their church buildings and then barred the door shut and lit the church on fire, killing hundreds. The German church celebrated the idol of nationalism and became actively complicit, in many cases, in the murder of Jews, homosexuals, communists, and other "undesirables." Other pastors and Christians throughout Europe courageously became lights of hope and shelter, as seen in countless stories like this one.
So, as we consider ethics, I won’t be encouraging you to join some particular church or party, for light is both seen and hidden, deceptively disguised and openly declared, darkened and magnified, not by institutions, but by people both within and outside the institution. What matters isn’t your words or party or church, its your life. Your life is your light… or your darkness. And to be specific… I’ll be asking questions like these:
What does being a person of light mean with respect to:
How I treat my neighbors
How I treat people radically different than me who are living on the margins
How I treat my enemies
My consumer choices
My relationship with violence and weapons of violence
My relationship with money and my view of economic systems
My commitment to the common good
My view of nation states
My view of public health
My views on how to hold one's sexuality and gender roles
How I treat my environment, the air, soil, water.
Asking these questions, rather than simply being shaped by culture, or church, or party, is contrary to prevailing cultural thinking. Simply by taking these questions seriously as a matter of faith or life we will begin to shine differently in contrast to the common paradigm of consumerism and unrestricted capitalism that seems to prevail. So ask we shall, and I am looking for a way to dialogue as well (perhaps some zoom discussions?). Pressing the matter further, we must make a few other foundation-laying observations about what it means to be a person of the light.
People of the Light are always working on their own stuff first. Paul's letter to Ephesus includes an encouragement for each reader to work at moving the parts of their lives that are in the darkness 'into the light' with the remarkable promise that 'everything that becomes visible becomes light.' The beginning of systemic transformations in culture don't happen by creating new laws or simply electing new people, especially who are lacking in integrity. First steps are always personal, because its only people who are healing who can ultimately heal. This requires what I call 'soul work' and one of the tools Wilderness Formation Ministry offers is the use of life map as a means of exposing the darker parts of soul to the light so that we can move from fear to boldness, addiction to freedom, anxiety to peace, and so much more.
People of the Light are like the moon. They don’t make light as much as reflect it. Numerous times throughout the gospels, Jesus declares himself to be THE light of the world, as in, 'the source' of all light, as explained so powerfully here. But Jesus also calls us 'the light of the world' and the path for us to display light is two fold: believe and depend on the light of Christ within you, and fixate on seeing and absorbing the light of Christ that's around you because we ultimately reflect that which we gaze upon. Fixate on lies, anger, despair, cynicism, and you'll become all those. Fixate on the light of Christ and you'll reflect Christ.
The Light is fully embodied in the person of Jesus. The Jesus we're looking for isn't a republican, a democrat, or even an American. He also isn't an advocate for the genocide and complex moral code of the Old Testament. We need to stop looking at these things as our final references. Instead, look for the ethics of the Prince of Peace, Living Water, Light of World who loves enemies, crosses social divides, cares for every life, forgives pre-emptively and so much more. He is, after all, the 'full and final expression of God's character, according to Hebrews 1 and John 1. In reality, every expression of Jesus that has ever existed has been culture bound, including the various American Jesus types. None of them are completely accurate, of course, so we need to quit defending our views and keep exploring, looking the ethics of the King and Kingdom that transcend, and hence, critique cultures, while being flexible enough to exist within them and work for its good.
People of Light are committed to letting it shine. One author writes, 'We made Jesus into a mere religion instead of a journey toward union with God and everything else. This shift made us into a religion of 'belonging and believing' rather than a 'religion of transformation.' Jesus, however, was clear: We will be known as people of either light or darkness, in varying degrees, not by our capacity to defend doctrines about deity, or trinity, or atonement, but by whether or not we make justice, mercy, and love visible in our lives in each of the areas I named above.
And that's what ethics are all about Charlie Brown.
When I do my breathing meditation in the mornings now, it’s usually dark, but as I listen to the Poor Sisters of Clare and look at my little tree, I have a sense of joy, and more importantly, a sense of calling. I am the light of the world. I have gifts to give. I am called to shine by teaching, writing, opening my home, investing in others, developing deepening intimacy in my marriage, empowering my children and granddaughters, stewarding my little forest. And you? Don’t let darkness win in your hearts, friends, because the world needs the light you have.
Please join me for this series, ‘The Ethics of being Light’ by subscribing and share this link with others who might benefit from the discussion. Thank you.