Let the light flow through unhindered

 

I nearly missed this sunset.

I got home later than usual, and took a little time to relax before heading back to town to pick up supper for the field. The early darkness is still surprising to me, so I didn't make the most of the daylight, and as I reached our corner, facing west, I checked for traffic before putting the car into park and rolling down the window for this photo. Not crazy about the telephone pole and stop sign, but this was what I had time to get.

I need to eat some humble pie, because I did check the election results just now, even though it is right before bedtime. I'm not as disciplined as I hoped I would be.

Last January, my daughter in law came over to help me arrange my new living room furniture. As we began, she told me that a good arrangement would 

let the light flow through unhindered.

That idea seems like a good plan for so much more than furniture placement. 

This election looks like it will be close, which means about half of us will feel like the world has taken a terrible turn, no matter how things end. I have very strong feelings about this election. I'm sure that is not a surprise. Judging from voter turnout, political mail, facebook, instagram, robo calls, and yard signs, I'm not the only one. 

How do we hold on to light? How do we let it flow through unhindered?

The words I read today before beginning centering prayer were from Philippians 1. 

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

The words seemed good for today, a day when our division is so strong that love is stretched thin and does not in any sense overflow more and more. 

I'm not crazy about the word righteousness. It seems too personal and self centered. In recent years I've learned that nearly always, the word that English Bibles translate as righteousness could/should be translated justice. In the Spanish Bibles it IS translated justice. Righteousness speaks to me of personal goodness, rule following, maybe even pride. Justice is outward, a result of "love that overflows more and more with knowledge and full insight in order to determine what is best." It makes the wrong things right. 

So I'm looking for how to do this, how to love more and more. How to love across the things that divide us AND be fully committed to a harvest of justice. 

Let the light flow through as unhindered as the sun on a clear day.

(I promise not to write about politics tomorrow.)