Light’s uninterrupted shining
It’s a basic fact of our lives – the Earth rotates, and we’re given a day and a night. Light and darkness appear in other ways too: happy moments and sad times, good and bad qualities, triumphs and failures.
But is darkness an inevitable counterpoint to light?
Here’s a different perspective from the Bible, and it’s part of the Bible Lesson from the “Christian Science Quarterly” on the topic of “Unreality” (for March 31-April 6): “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).
No turning, no shadow, no change ... only light! This image brings such hope, and we can be grateful that it’s the reality of God.
Since God is All-in-all, as Christian Science reveals, we, His children, express His qualities. God, Spirit, makes all spiritual, unlimited, and harmonious. God gives us stability, certainty of good, and the authority to claim goodness as true and darkness as untrue.
Later in the Lesson a man named Bartimaeus, who is blind, asks Jesus to heal him (see Mark 10:46-52). Actually, the moment he’s told Jesus is nearby, he shouts to him. Many people try to quiet him, but he only shouts louder, the Bible says.
Does Jesus rebuke such insistence? No. He invites him over, and after a brief conversation, Bartimaeus is healed. He’s able to see, and he follows Jesus.
One of the beautiful parts of this account is that Bartimaeus was willing, eager even, to leave behind the view of life as partly good and partly bad, limited and material, for the understanding of our unlimited spiritual nature that Jesus held and shared with those who would listen.
A correlative passage from “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy in the section in the Bible Lesson featuring this Bible account says, “Working and praying with true motives, your Father will open the way. ‘Who did hinder you, that ye should not obey the truth?’” (p. 326). Bartimaeus shows us that even if something or someone tries to hinder us in claiming the light of Truth, Christ calls us over to uncover our God-reflecting freedom. Like Bartimaeus, we can follow.
I had an opportunity to wake up to spiritual reality when it felt as though the light had gone out on a mentoring relationship that I had cherished. I had done something irresponsible that damaged the relationship, and the effects had lasted for a couple of years. We just weren’t close, and I carried the burden of my mistake.
I prayed about this rift. Then, I was inspired to reach out to this individual to catch up. They agreed to talk. And before the conversation, I leaned into what I knew spiritually, that what was actually real about both of us was God’s goodness. Seen in the light of spiritual reality, there never was a mistake that had happened; I never had a real burden to carry; and this friend hadn’t been hurt.
We always have the opportunity and ability to yield to Christ, light-filled Truth. As I did just that, I felt a tangible sense of God’s love, and the room filled with light. I no longer felt a vestige of mistake or fracture in the relationship.
Just a moment later we had our call, and it was bright with joy. Not a stitch of the old history asserted itself – the history I had been afraid of for so long. And we continued to have a mutually supportive relationship.
“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,” the final section of the Lesson states (I John 1:5). Darkness has no place to exist in light. This isn’t just theory, and it’s not a far-off truth. But when shadows do seem to appear, like Bartimaeus we need to be willing to leave behind any doubt that goodness and wholeness are the reality.
God’s light shines. We can keep our eyes open to see it.
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