We Carry the Light
This newsletter will resume it’s normal “digest” format after this post.
What follows is the letter I wrote to no one.
I wrote it for myself but, had anyone found it one day, I suppose it would be to them. I was facing an end. Life was destroyed, and I was a shell. There were no thoughts of the future. I was saying goodbye in a way.
As a shell of a person, there was nothing much inside of me. Everything had been bled out. Yet, the residue of faith remained and stained my insides.
That residue built up as a youth while walking to church three times a week, hearing about heaven and hell from the preacher and my aunts and uncles, seeing grown men fold themselves onto the floor in prayer, and feeling the feet of my “family” in my hands as I gently poured water over them, forever learning where humility begins.
More residue was added while I lingered alone at the creek and wondered about the stories in the rocks - where they came from and what their purpose was if I was the only one to ever see them.
More build-up occurred by walking up the road and passing animals killed by cars - their lives so inconsequential, so “nothing” and seeing the once full flesh become a stiff, leathery hide that got ground into dust by the repeated rolling over of cars and the little gnaws of things with beaks and teeth.
I wondered to God about these things. I wondered how much I - we - were like that animal - here then gone, living then dead, known and then forgotten. Did anything matter?
I always heard a “yes.”
In the thin layers that made up the creek rocks, in the tiny fossil imprint never to be seen again, in the inconsequential budding leaflet on the side of the tree glowing chartreuse with the sunlight, in the mites that covered the stiffened hide on the road, and in the little interactions among family, it was always “yes.”
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Always yes.
Everything mattered.
Always.
And so, as I sat writing out a letter to no one, completely empty, I spoke of the only thing I really knew. I’m so thankful for my youth at church. So thankful for the haybales outside in the fall, the sound of my aunt and uncle leading singing, another aunt and uncle pressing bible stories and lessons into us, and preachers that told me of a hell to shun and a heaven to gain. I knew that rain falls on the just and the unjust, and I happen to be both. Nevertheless, the tender Savior was ready to receive all who come to Him.
All the small choices I could have made, all the transparency I lacked, all the life instruction I did not get, and all the advantages I still had in spite of everything -
all to be folded neatly and put away. A whole life.
A leathery carcass, a layered stone, a leaf on the water.
Then something unexpected happened.
The very-certain course of events suddenly turned in our favor, and we just … walked away.
It was May 4th.
Below, I have left the original publication date.
I hope this letter finds you well, but if you are not well, know that everything matters. Pain matters. Anger matters. Injustice matters. IF they lead to surrender.
Surrender produces the tears that water what will grow next. Weep for your losses. Weep for the brokenness. Water this day.
I write this on April 27, 2024 - Lazarus Saturday to Orthodox Christians - where the story of the raising of Lazarus is recounted and meditated on. One week from now is May 4th.
Jesus let his good friends suffer and let Lazarus die. Not just die, but stay dead 4 days. There was no hope.
There were burial clothes.
Jesus, being fully God,
wept.
What could not be felt was the tremoring of hell, as the voice of God spoke through tears and demanded that Death give back his precious one.
Lazarus - dead - 4 days dead - walked out.
Below is a letter from a once-dead man.
February 22 2015
We carry the light.
I would not have people believe that a tragedy is a defeat. I would not have people think that lost things cannot be recovered. I would not have people feel that the enemy controls the day, though there are tragedies, things do get lost, and though there is an adversary. Bad things happen. Sometimes as consequences, sometimes as accidents, sometimes as attacks, but never apart from the sight of God. The adversary has a will. We have wills. God has a will. God is not an assistant, the adversary is not a boss, and we ought not treat life as we treat work – where we put time in on jobs we don’t really want in the hope that we can retire one day. Yet, we do just that. So when bad things happen we are not prepared. Because we have not taken ourselves seriously (I mean ALL of our Self), we are slow to respond, confused, and quick to blame others or our circumstances.
The enemy is not in control. Our lives are not like leaves in a stream – unless we have given up. We are the drivers of our lives. We are to blame for our despair if we are not constantly praying. We are to blame when we look out onto a world and see no hope because we haven’t developed spiritual sight. The enemy cannot be blamed when we have failed to take the Gospel seriously. The enemy is not to blame for the way we choose to spend our time. The enemy must not be blamed when we always, always, choose the path of least resistance.
Yet, the enemy is near. He loves it when we talk of the perils of the flesh but then do nothing to discipline ourselves. He loves to turn “Repent” into “Behave.” More than most, he loves to whisper that we exist apart from a Standard, that commands are more like suggestions, and that our choices should be guided by our own inner knowledge and experience.
He is, of course, partially correct.
However, the Resurrection wasn’t for the part, but the whole.
Those who have really decided that they actually believe in Resurrection and follow Christ’s teachings have the compass and light within them. They learned what “Repent” means. They know they don’t exist apart from God. They practice the commandments and therefore only need a gentle suggestion to do right.
In other words, they carry the light. When bad things happen they know that the crucible can refine us. When we get lost, they know that there is no place where God is not. When we are attacked, they know that prayer and contemplation call an unseen force to our aid. When the good seems to be losing ground, they point to their soul and say to the enemy, “This far you shall come and no further.” They carry the light.
Let us not look for miracles, lest we be like those that Jesus spoke of who would not believe even if someone from the dead returned to speak to them.
When bad things happen, let us not look for signs that God hears us and will come help us. He gave us Resurrection. He gave us fire from ash, water from stone, heartbeats from clay. He gave us the Fourth Man. Let us look to what abundance is around us before we ask for more. For what is our faith if all we do is say how little we have? Faith is trusting that which has proven itself trustworthy.
Bad things happen, but Christ lives. We get lost, but God is with us. Tragedy comes, but Christ is risen. We lift our eyes to the promise, looking over that which besets us.
We carry the light.
“Behold, I make all things new.”
February 22 2015
How I need You