A "Jiggly" Light

LIGHT and DARK— these two things have been used as metaphors for all kinds of things. Things like good and evil, life and death, happiness and sadness, hope and hopelessness. In this piece want to suggest something a little different. I want to expand the metaphor just a bit.

In a general way of thinking, LIGHT is actually something. It is something that comes from a source and it travels at the speed of light and of course, it illuminates other things. DARKness, on the other hand, well, it isn’t actually anything. Darkness is actually, the absence of something: light.

Now, I’m going to get a little science geeky for a minute if you don’t mind. In scientific terms, light is simply our ability to see electromagnetic waves. Like when you can see waves or ripples in water. Some of the ripples you see are slow and fairly far apart, and some of them are fast and close together. If you were able to get your hands on a scientific instrument called a spectroscope, you could actually see what the electromagnetic waves look like. You could see the wave forms of things like radio waves, micro-waves and even X-ray waves. Now I’m going to use a technical term here so hold on to your seat, electromagnetic waves are typically started or kicked off when some kind of electric charge (and here’s the geeky technical term) jiggles.

The way we’re able to distinguish between the various types of electromagnetic wave forms really depends on their frequency or how scrunched together the peaks of the waves are. For example, radio waves have a pretty low frequency, so the peaks in their waves are pretty far apart. Next come the microwaves, then the infrared light and then we get to the visible spectrum of electromagnetic waves. These are all the different frequencies or colors of light that most of us can actually see. Then you can continue to move higher in frequency into the ultraviolet light category. If you go even higher where the wave peaks are even closer together you’ll find X-rays and still higher are gamma rays.

The human eye is truly an incredible thing. When electromagnetic waves in the visible light spectrum hit certain photoreceptors in your eye, they somehow are able to convert the wave energy into things that our brain can actually “see”. And thus—there is light.

For a blind person, those photo receptors simply don’t work properly and thus, they can’t see. But here’s the first really important point about that — just because someone cannot see the visible light spectrum waves, doesn’t change the fact that they are actually there. Just because someone can’t see light, doesn’t mean it’s not there. It just means they can’t see it. Ok, no more geeky science stuff.

So I said at the beginning that I wanted to expand the light and dark metaphor a bit. In the gospel of John, Jesus tells us that He “is the light of the world”. Way back in the very beginning of the bible, we are told that there was some powerful creative event like the big bang, or maybe through some kind of evolutionary process (or maybe both of those are true anyway) but anyway, through whatever process that started it all - in all that nothing into something - some kind of electrical charge happened and then it … jiggled. And in all that jiggling, we get “and then there was light”. Light — jiggling electrical charges — was created. In that instant, we know that if light was suddenly created, by default it eliminated the thing we call darkness. Remember, as we said earlier, darkness actually isn’t a thing at all. Darkness is the opposite of light. Darkness is the absence of something, the absence of jiggling electromagnetic charged particles (aka light). And if there is light, then there is not darkness.

What I find to be so interesting and so profound is that just like with light and dark, there are so many situations and circumstances, so many uniquenesses and differences, so many variations and so many beautiful varieties of life and love and thinking and believing out there. Like the visible and invisible light spectrum ,we can’t begin to perceive them all, but they are still very much there. Just like the blind person, just because I might not be able to see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

If you’ll allow me, I want to expand the metaphor just a bit more. In what is known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says this, “You are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can’t be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they put it on top of a lamp stand, and it shines on all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine…”

First, when Jesus says “you are the light of (or to) the world He was speaking not just to his own disciples and followers, but he was speaking to a really large crowd of folks. Certainly some of them were the “super religious God-follower” type folks, but the vast majority in this large crowd were curiosity seekers and questioners. I honestly think that most of us fall into that category.

I used to think I was in the super God-follower category, but honestly, over these last few years I have come to realize that the more I know (or the more I think I know), the less I am sure that I know and the more I fall into that wonderful and messy category of curiosity seeker and questioner. And that’s not a bad place to be at all. I’m completely ok with that.

I love the fact that Jesus lumps ALL of the hearers which were there in that crowd on that day, into the category of “light to the world”. So after stewing in this verse for a good while now, my thought (I think) is that both the super God-follower folks along with the curiosity seekers and questioners are all seeking ways to spread light, and live in truth, love, peace and justice. And that in doing that, Jesus says that we are all visible light waves jiggling out to the world.

Secondly, I see in this verse that we are “to be light” and to be that light generally scattered out in all directions. I think that I think this means that we are to be good humans, seeking ways to spread light and life, and live in truth, love, peace and justice with all our fellow humans, and in doing so, we shine that light to all with the hope that they can realize their own inherent inclusion in that wonderful southern 1st century jewish phrase, “All y’all are the light to the world”.

I also see that for our more religious folks reading this passage, there is something glaringly left out of Jesus’ words. Nowhere does he say that this light is to be focused down tightly into a harsh, narrow inquisitive flashlight type beam of light whose only purpose is to highlight the flaws of others and give justification to keep them out of the super God-follower club. Those who choose to view Jesus’ words about light as excluding the majority of the crowd there that day in favor of including only the super God-follower types will often wield their harsh narrow beams of light, much more as a WEAPON of exclusion and separation. I believe that Jesus intended us to look at his words much more as a broad BEACON of inclusion and welcome. “All y’all are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can’t be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they put it on top of a lamp stand, and it shines on all. In the same way, let your light shine…”

The final point I want to make is to suggest that when Jesus says “YOU are the LIGHT to the world” he is saying something even more profound than we’ve already discovered. Stay with me for a minute. Light, as we’ve said, is an electromagnetic wave that comes from some kind of source. At that source, an electrically charged particle jiggles and emits a wave which then can be perceived as light. Those waves are real and are actually there, even if no one were there to see it.

As we read earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus uses the metaphor of himself or rather, the “the divine” Godhead being the light of the world. In other words, Jesus says that God is the ultimate initiating “light source”, the original source of all light. But then in Matthew 5, he also says that we (all of we) are the “light to the world”. We are the “source” of the jiggling for the world around us. I think that I think this is suggesting that we are ALL, at the very minimum, connected directly with the divine. As I walk this journey, I am more and more convinced that we are all way more than just connected, but that we are actually part of the corporate, collective divine, or as it is put elsewhere in the Bible we are “The Body”.

So, my friends, in all that you do, I challenge you to jiggle well. Shine your light whether or not those around you may seem to see it. Just jiggle and shine.

So, what’s the point of this post? It’s actually a really simple, but profound point that I believe Jesus is making.

(1) All Are Included, and All means ALL.

(2) All of you are encouraged (maybe “called” is a better word) by the divine ultimate source, to be who you truly are. To be exactly who you were created and born to be and to live authentically with your fellow light bearers.

(3) That encouragement or calling includes things like being good humans, seeking ways to spread light and live in truth, love, peace and justice with all our fellow humans. In doing so, we jiggle and shine that light to all, with the hope that they can see their own inherent inclusion into Jesus’ words that “All y’all are the light to the world”

Peace

Murphy