Christmas is the season of light, perhaps an irony in the Northern Hemisphere during the shortest days of the year. Like the Taoist forces of yin and yang, when our days seem dark and our nights long, when all we see is failure, the light of truth appears closest at hand – if we choose to see and reach.
In today’s daily meditation, Richard Rohr quoted Matthew 6:22 “The lamp of the body is the eye; if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light.”
My eye isn’t always sound. My body is rarely filled with light because I want to be perfect, a mission impossible, but that doesn’t stop me. Which is right and which is wrong, I wonder in confusion, and then fall back to the safety of my obsessions. I make mountains out of molehills, forget about others, and worry about my own petty problems.
In her December 22nd post, the blogger of Cathy’s Voice Now wrote: “Sin is the most logical thing I understand from the Bible. There are many verses telling us that we are sinners by nature and that no one is without sin. It is from the beginning to the end. What isn’t logical is that this all powerful, omnipotent God would bother with any of us. Why not just get rid of us all and start from scratch? Instead, He did something absolutely illogical.”
He gave us the light, His son and the Gospels.
Having the light closest at hand during the darkest times might seem absolutely illogical. But this illogic is the only way I can overcome my stubborn insistence on seeing the world the way I want the world to be. It is the only way I can be a better person, the person God wants me to be.
For everyone struggling with addiction to egocentric action and inaction – everyone – I wish you a blessed Christmas filled with the joy of seeing and reaching for the light, the hope that comes from listening to wisdom, and the courage required to change for the better.
Merry Christmas
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