Share the light

“Yes, but how can you turn your back on the darkness in this world?” one might ask. “We have a responsibility to shine a light on the awfulness everywhere.”

It’s a compelling question. There is awfulness everywhere, and so many people’s solutions seem to be to create awfulness of a different sort. That way lies darkness, it seems, no matter which way one turns.

“Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.” Yes, that’s from a poem about death, but when you look too long into the darkness, it does seem that so much is dying.

That’s why it feels so radical to shine a light on the light.

Everywhere you turn, you may find sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like.

Adjust your attitude just a hair, and everywhere you look you may find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

And I dare say you will find these things in greater abundance, because as much as we are drawn to the darkness, in the light we find what we desire in our heart of hearts.

These are the two choices we have every day — light and dark; good and evil, as it were. I find when I reach for the light and when I reach for the dark, the feelings that arise as I write are remarkably different. The light feels like freedom. The dark feels like slavery.

If the choice is freedom or slavery, I firmly believe most people choose freedom. That is why I choose to share the light; that is why I am hopeful; that is why I choose to live in the light rather than rage, rage — because dawn always comes to chase away the darkness.

(I plagiarized part of this blog post. You may find the original text in Paul’s letter to the Galatians; scholars have marked the passage as Chapter 6, verses 13 through 26.)