Cultivate the light within you each day this week.
January 7: The Light of Creation
- Scripture: Genesis 1:3-4 — And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
- Reflection: Reflect on the significance of light in creation. It is paired with darkness, and both are essential. We need night and darkness, too. Today we focus on light. Remember also that once each day was concluded, God also saw that God’s creation was good.
- Spiritual Discipline: Spend 10 minutes in nature, or witnessing nature from a safe place if you cannot be outside, observing light in various forms. Let it touch you and perhaps warm you. Let it dance before your eyes and cast shadows, too; does looking at the light make you blink? How would light taste … like something hot from the oven? Does light have a sound, such as when fuel burns to create light?
Let light connect with your body and senses. Take it in. How do you respond to light?
SONGS:
- I Saw the Light by Hank Williams: https://youtu.be/YQbSy8bgVr0?si=KOYzjL2JZBnNYgZB
- Light of the World by Lauren Daigle: https://youtu.be/_cLhaZIBSpo?si=Lf4r5up1QHch1YRA
For Light – John O’Donohue
Light cannot see inside things.
That is what the dark is for:
Minding the interior,
Nurturing the draw of growth
Through places where death
In its own way turns into life.
In the glare of neon times,
Let our eyes not be worn
By surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.
That our thoughts may be true light,
Finding their way into words
Which have the weight of shadow
To hold the layers of truth.
That we never place our trust
In minds claimed by empty light,
Where one-sided certainties
Are driven by false desire.
When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.
That the searching of our minds
Be equal to the oblique
Crevices and corners where
The mystery continues to dwell,
Glimmering in fugitive light.
When we are confined inside
The dark house of suffering
That moonlight might find a window.
When we become false and lost
That the severe noon-light
Would cast our shadow clear.
When we love, that dawn-light
Would lighten our feet
Upon the waters.
As we grow old, that twilight
Would illuminate treasure
In the fields of memory.
And when we come to search for God,
Let us first be robed in night,
Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rush of light
Spread slowly inside
The color and stillness
Of a found word.