It’s appropriate that our daily reflections on Becoming Soul-Centered begin on the Day of Epiphany, January 6, twelve days after Christmas. (Traditionally, in the liturgical calendar, the “12 days of Christmas” are the 12-day season between Christmas and Epiphany. Today marks the beginning of the season of Epiphany.) Among other things, it’s a time in Western Christianity when we remember the Magi following the light of a new star to find the infant Jesus. So a principal symbol of the season is light, the light that shines in the darkness and leads us to new discoveries, new manifestations of who God is… and who we are.
As we reflect upon what it means to become more fully in touch with our deepest, truest selves - what it means to more fully live from the depths of our souls - you might think about it as each of us individually, and all of us collectively, seeking to let our true lights shine. Light is a powerful metaphor in Christian spirituality. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world... Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matt.5:14-16). It’s interesting - and powerful - that Jesus claims that WE are the light of the world, not just him! He seems to be saying that God’s Light is not just something outside of us by which we can see, but something that is IN us, that is part of who we are.
And… if we are all image-bearers of the same God of Light, then that same Light is part of each of us. Yes, it may be more well-hidden and buried in some than in others - but the light is there nonetheless. Thomas Merton, a 20th-century American theologian and writer on spirituality, wrote this in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world...
This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud... I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed... But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.
On this first day of our soul-centering journey together, reflect for a moment on what it means that God’s light not only shines on us, but in us.
Let this be our simple prayer today. Meditate on it for a few moments, turning its phrases over slowly and repeatedly: Light of the world, shine on me. Light of the world, shine in me. Light of the world, shine thru me.