The Harried Mystic

I was too long inside, busy with work and having lost the sense of time. I needed a stretch. I opened the front door to take a short walk and get fresh air when I was blinded by brilliant sunlight. For a bit, I couldn’t see a thing and it even hurt as my eyes struggled to adapt. Everything was bathed in intense light; so bright in fact that, for a split second, I too was light.

We’ve all had this experience on especially bright days as we first step outside. It passes quickly, our eyes adapt, and we get on with it. But, this time, it got me to thinking. The long night ends as the Son rises in the East, making all things luminous.

Each dawn reminds us of this central mystery. The night ends in a flash from the East as a new day begins; the moment when dreams are renewed. On Long Island, many of us have traveled out East to Montauk Point to see the “green flash” seconds before Sunrise. Analogously, the first Easter also came in a flash, after the dark time of sorrows.

I imagine the moment as Mary greeted a man she first assumed was the gardener. As he stood at the opening of the now empty tomb, the light behind him obscured his features. Imagine her sudden realization in hearing him call her by name that he was her Lord. In a flash, tears of mourning dissolved into expressions of joy.

Dwight Kalita wrote a quite captivating and insightful book some years back entitled, “Light Consciousness”. He tracked all the references to light in both the canonical and apocryphal gospels and he saw light used as metaphor for revelation over and over again.

Light is mentioned 90 – 97 times in the New Testament ( depending on the translation). “ Darkness” is mentioned, on the other hand, around 41 times, less than half as often. This contrasts with the physical reality of the universe where light makes up less than 5% of what’s out there. All the rest is an unknown dark stuff that bears no resemblance to the matter we know and are made of ( electrons, protons, etc). Light is dwarfed by all the darkness from which it emerges.

The compelling message strikes me with abundant clarity: Resurrection is the triumph of light over the persistent darkness. I think on these things with special focus as March 2018 saw the loss of famed Cosmologist, Dr. Stephen Hawking, whose life was a passionate dance with the mysteries of light and darkness. While not a religious man, he spent the time he was given contemplating the mind of the Cosmos.

Among his contributions is the notion of “Hawking Radiation,” the realization that elementary particles do emerge from black holes from which otherwise nothing (well, almost nothing) escapes. The triumph of the light is more glorious when placed in the context of ineffable and pervasive night. Even “black holes” ultimately cannot contain an exuberant fountain of energy.

The perpetual tension between light and darkness quickens our senses and feeds our hope as we awaken each morning to the task of being children of that same light in the world. Ours is the joyful obligation to be bearers of light in imitation of the Wayshower.

What form does this “light” take? Well, interestingly, the word “ love” appears 221 times in the New Revised Standard New Testament. Pure and simple, Light Consciousness is love consciousness and recognition that my brothers and sisters are everyone and everything, everywhere. The work of conversion rests in locking arms and, to quote the character Yvaine, from the movie, Stardust ( an incarnated star played by Claire Danes): “Let’s do what stars do … Shine!”

I pray, my dear friend, that your time be filled with the Light of Love that overcomes all despair, hopelessness and the otherwise crushing darkness of our times.

© The Harried Mystic, 2018 and Br. Anton, TSSF. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.