Sunday, August 15, 2021
Sunday Reflection: In the Shadows
Illusionists don't know magic; they just know what we pay attention to. Our eyes are drawn to what is bright or flashy or moving. We watch the hand waving the wand, not the one palming the bird.
I love shadows. It is where the really interesting things happen. In our society, there are the flashy, loud moving things that we all look at instinctively. But there are shadows, too. Sometimes they are darkened because social illusionists don't want us to see what is there. For example, the outrage over paying attention to racism (as seen in the reaction some people have to the simple statement that "black lives matter")-- it is a noisy distraction telling us to look somewhere else.
Jesus always went right there, of course. He went to talk to that Samaritan woman by the well, stopped an execution, upbraided the Pharisees. In each, he was confronting what was in the shadows, things that might be disruptive once the light hit them.
There is this beautiful moment of dusk: the shadows get longer and longer, and then-- once the sun hits the horizon and the light is diffuse-- there is a moment of this soft, gentle light on everything, and the shadows are gone. It's magic. Or something better.
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On the beach, just before twilight, there is a golden light that surrounds everything in a softly glowing luster. It is a color and a light I've never seen anywhere else -- but I have seen it on every beach I've been on. I'm sure there is a scientific reason for it -- the slant of the dying sun's rays meeting the moisture in the air or something like that. But for me, it is the time when I most feel my place in the universe, when I know why God placed me on the Earth at this time, in this place, with these people who love me and who I love.
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