Lost Light, Stolen Joy

New Issue of Holy Ground!

This, my dear

is the greatest challenge

to being alive.

To witness injustice in the world

and to not allow it to consume our light.

Thich Nhat Hahn

Beloved one, how is your light? Do you know where it is? What is the quality of your light – a dim sputtering flame, a sparkler in the dark, a burning sun? Or has the injustice of the world gobbled up your light? We are all easy prey for the temptations of despair, fear, and hopelessness.

Nothing could prepare Jesus’s disciples for what it would mean to follow him. They just had to do it and be overcome by it. It will always be “too much.” Nothing can really prepare us for this process of inner and outer crucifixion and death to ourselves. Still, we each must kneel in our own Gethsemane and come to terms with that sticky web of self-deceit, confusion, and fear which binds our minds and bodies in endless knots that blind us to the brilliant light of God within us and our responsibility to lift it up for all to see.