Christmas light is everywhere

Cleave the wood, I am there.
Lift the stone, and thou shalt find me. 

Gospel of Thomas, verse 77

It's not science fiction.  While it may seem like a new idea, it's as ancient as the craggy rocks and the water flowing around them, or the soft luminescence of the tree branches lingering vibrantly over it all.  

It is the light of the life force itself that's everywhere.  It is the light of life. It may seem illusive to us as we run madly through our lives chasing and playing this huge collective global board game of economics, politics, poverty and wealth, sickness and health. All that is not real, really. We are so heavily invested in it, controlled by it with all its rules, all about who's winning and who's losing and what that means and what that feels like.  It is indeed the Matrix.

What is real is this effusive, luminescent life force, so subtle to our blind vision that we rarely see it.

Yet, it is there, spread out before us, if only we had eyes to see. If it is there to see in nature, certainly it is there in us and it would flow through our creations - even this tired old board game.  It is everywhere, whether or not we stop to take notice. It is our power source and it is something I don't dare frame within any religious language.  It is life, simply.  It flows where it wills, but it seems that it flows where it is least impeded.  

Why don't we see it? Why does it seem only visible under a microscope or special lighting arrangements to heighten it? I think it's because we're not looking.  The power of human consciousness is so strong - if only we all knew that - that it can amplify what we perceive only faintly.  While it may be able - according to a lot of scientific studies - to make a plant grow larger and heal someone of an illness, it is relatively not acknowledged in ordinary life, and rarely if ever in the mainline media.

How can we see it?  I think we need to cultivate a sensitivity to life itself a bit more, slow down our minds just a bit. Turn off the loud voices, noise and demands of our outer world, and adjust our minds to the silence within. Eventually that silence becomes more alive than what's outside of us. 

I used to hike a beautiful natural five-mile stretch along a creek. I would block out a couple hours and head out on it. In a short while all the thoughts of work and the kids and all the ordinary things in my life would slowly pass out of my mind. Gradually, I began to hear the birds, frogs. A spectacular sight of a beautiful blue heron sweeping above would hawk his annoyance at me being there.  Suddenly everything burst into life.  It had always been there, but I hadn't.   

My mind had been on everything else. When I realized I'd stepped into a beautiful symphony of song and dance, of absolute beauty, then I could see the luminescence of the tree branches. I brushed one long branch that hung out over the trail, lovingly, and acknowledged it. Suddenly, it seemed like all the other branches wanted the same acknowledgement. There was no doubt there was a pervasive consciousness to all this. 

And, then I saw it.  I saw their light.  It came as I began to feel so much love for all of them, for the birds, the heron, the frogs, the clear water of the creek, the rocks and pebbles, the trees.  It was beyond beautiful.

Then, a car drove by on the bridge where I was standing watching the heron.  It sounded like a thunderous clap of horses' hooves.  Everything went silent.  It seemed like this beautiful, vibrant world that I had been in, screeched to a halt as it held its breath at the loud intrusion of a single car crossing the bridge. I was surprised at how loud an ordinary car, driving across a bridge, could sound. 

Then, after it left, slowly one by one the birds returned to their chirping and singing. Life at the creek came back alive, the tree branches began conversing with me again and there was light everywhere.  As I slowly started back on the trail, I wished I had wings on my feet because even the sound of my sneakers, as lightly as I walked, sounded loud. Wonderfully and awesomely, I had made friends with the life around me, and they continued to teach me all about it.  

When I finally got home, I was ecstatic.  It all had been so beautiful, so powerful, so alive, so radiant and so wonderful. That is the light of life.  And, this light is in us and in our lives also, if we can only listen for it by softening our noisy imprints in life.

Recently, at work, I was feeling a bit badly about something related to one of our disabled people. I really just wanted to cry. When a coworker, who noticed, said something sweet to me, I literally felt her words.  I physically felt the light and life in them.  It was simple, but I was stunned and absolutely delighted when I saw light in her words. I knew in our words of kindness and positive intention, like the beautiful life along the creek, is life also.  

I think another example of seeing life's light is what happens when we turn off the lights.  At first we can't see anything in the dark, but slowly our eyes adjust and soon we can literally see in the dark.  I think the "Kingdom of God," is found like that. It is an inner realm of life that is there all along, but when we're focused on everything else, we miss it.  I truly think Jesus came to help us focus our eyes in the dark to see the light that is always there - in us and around us.  We just have to tune in, I guess.