Lighten Up! The World Needs Illumination. And Light. And Love.

Life is a lot more interesting if you are interested in the people and the places around you. So, illuminate your little patch of ground, the people that you know, the things that you want to commemorate. Light them up with your art, with your music, with your writing, with whatever it is that you do.”              --Alan Moore, author “V for Vendetta” et al

Lighten up.

That was the wise advice my spiritual director gave me on one of my more downhearted, deadly serious, “chicken little the sky is falling” kind of days.  Can’t remember what I was worrying about, or griping about; what person I was anxious to please or what part of my work I was kvetching about. What in this world, with all its brokenness and beauty, I was complaining about.

The point is—I was living without light. Living unilluminated. Being shady in a way, shadow filled. Pigpen from Charlie Brown comics walks around with perpetual dirt clouds surrounding him.  If I am not careful, I can walk around with perpetual dark clouds surrounding me, huge gray puffy clouds threatening to rain on my parade, on your parade too, if I am not careful.

Thus, my need for light and illumination and to just lighten up. And to remember this sage wisdom every day.  I need the light. We all need the light just to see better, to see more, to see clearly now that the rain is gone, and it just might be a bright sunny day, in the words of a beautiful song.

Thank goodness this week contains the exact day when our supply of natural light is at its peak for the year. On our summer solstice, the sun came up at 5:10 am and didn’t go back down until 8:26 pm.  So much sunlight for so long, longer than any other day of the year. Yes, on June 21^st we will start “losing” sunlight in these parts of the world but let’s not talk about that yet, ok?

Let’s talk about summer light.

The light that allows us to watch a Little League baseball game on a balmy June evening, cheering for all those young players as they round the bases so earnestly. Summer light allows us to enjoy an after-dinner ice cream cone at Dairy Queen or some other local creamery. To stand in line with our fellow frozen treat aficionados as the sun hangs around and nothing tastes better than a cone on a still bright night, right? Summer light gifts us with a long bike ride after work, or nine holes post the office, or maybe a quick sail, or just a walk with the dog.

We need that light. Need to be the light too. God’s light. A love light.

Lately I’ve been paying attention to the people in my life and world who bring light into the lives of other people for no other reason that to just do good and be God’s good in a world that always threatens to go all dim.  Like the person in the drive-thru line at DD’s who paid for the coffee of the person behind them. It’s true. It happened. Someone actually did that for me once. That lightened me up! Or how about folks who treat a brow beaten clerk behind the counter with kindness and care, saying a sincere and kind “Thank you!” and maybe even leaving an unexpectedly generous tip.

That’s sure to brighten someone’s day.

Or think of the rare politician, the civic leader who brings out the light and the goodness in the people she serves. That’s what great leaders always do: they bring out the light in others.  Bad leaders always evoke the worst, appeal to the darkest of human impulses, and are only interested in light if it shines on them. What an illuminated world it could be if folks threw out all those shadowy leaders and instead lifted up those who embody light.

Light. Love. Peace. Joy. Hope.

Funny thing about light is that the more you share with others, the lighter our own lives become.  We lighten up and laugh and don’t take ourselves too seriously and it gives permission for other folks to lighten up too. Jesus was right when he said to his students, “You are the light of the world!”

We all have the light within. The question is….do we see it? See and give thanks to the creator of all illumination for our own light, then share it with others? Everybody needs the light.  Needs illumination. Needs to remember that each human life matters, that if one light, just one life is threatened, all the lights are threatened.

Lighten up.

I’m trying. And you? Will you be the light today? 

Happy summer solstice!

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.