M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

It seems to be a great year for lilac, the laburnum is in bud, and it really does look as if the wisteria will bloom. It is rather far north for it, so I will not believe it until it happens. However the leaves are out, and still it is full of buds of a quite different shape, so I hope it will prove a year of exceptions.

Our branch of the Church is beginning to grow again, very slowly, after having lost several people to moving away for reasons of work, missions, and so on. Unfortunately they have not yet been replaced by new people either moving in, or joining. Our small improvement is due to less active people returning. But long may that continue.

Spring in Scotland. Photo taken in 2007 by Anne Perry.

Light versus Darkness

The New Testament has always been my favourite of all the scriptures, as well as by far the one I know best. This year Sunday school has been extraordinarily spiritual. I share the teaching of it with another sister, which works very well, because both of us are away at times, but they very seldom coincide, so dividing between us is not difficulty.

I taught both the last lesson of April and the first one of May, and I cannot recall two which I have found more spiritually enlightening.

The first was on Christ being the Light of the World. Our class is fairly small so everyone has opportunity to participate, and especially lately I have felt that the reverence and inspiration have been outstanding. There has been no contention at all, but a great deal of deeply thought suggestion and contribution.

When we were speaking of Christ being the Light of the World, we mentioned how frightening darkness can be. Many of us had been in caves deep under the ground where there is no light at all, absolutely nothing, so that one loses all sense of perspective, direction, almost of sensation other than that of up and, down given by gravity.

As one brother pointed out, in such darkness one does not move at all. What would be the point? The next stretch of utter blackness would be no different, except that it might hold dangers we know nothing of. There would be no gain.

What a parallel with spiritual darkness! Why move if you don’t know where you are, where you have come from, or where there is to go to — let alone what it is like, or how to get there?

How many people in life are merely surviving, because they don’t know who they are, or what they might become? Without any concept of heaven, what is there to strive for? With nothing to aim for, movement is pointless.

That thought started all sorts of ideas. There were feelings of immense gratitude, and a burning desire to light even the smallest flame, but preferably a very large one, to show the path forward, and to shout out, by what we say and do — “Yes, there is a God! Eternal life is marvellous, beautiful, full of joy. We don’t know the whole path, but we can see the beginning, and we know where the end can be.” And there is no point in saying it if we are not holding the light high, and clearly moving on the path ourselves.

It is the old saying, “I cannot hear what you say because what you do speak is loud.” If we are not travelling, however haltingly, although the more firmly the better, how can we convince anyone else that we can see anything at all?

Sheltering the Light

Let us shelter all light from the winds of misfortune that may blow them out, the waves that might drown them, the rain or darkness that make them so hard to see.

I say that metaphorically, in line with something Elizabeth, (my secretary) was saying this week. She has recently been reading about people who constantly encourage others, not lightly or thoughtlessly, but with intelligence and honesty, thinking to praise what is good, to speak the kind word, the word of praise or gratitude.

And of course, conversely, to hold the tongue from the pointless criticism, the word of negativity, contradiction that is a “knee-jerk” reaction, not a helpful warning. It is so easy to pull someone else down out of envy, cynicism, the need to make our own point seem more important, more valuable or more righteous.

“It is not always about me” is a good thing to remember. Sometimes “I” am just a member of the orchestra, not necessarily the soloist. Somebody else’s feelings might be completely different from mine, but they are just as important. Their joy and their pain matter just as much as mine do. Their success does not mean my failure.

I intend to get a copy of this book myself, and to read, study and absorb what it says.

What a wonderful thing it would be to become the kind of person who helps others to believe in themselves more, in the best way. Imagine standing at judgment day and having someone turn to you and say, “I succeeded at this because you helped me believe I could; because of you, I tried.” Wouldn’t that be marvellous?

Just for an instant consider the opposite — “I failed because you made me think I was worthless. I was going to try, but you took the heart out of me.”

I agree that we should not let anyone take our courage; we have to be stronger than that. Failure is our own responsibility, as is success. But how beautiful to be one who helps rather than the one who hurts.

We all need help. We all stand alone at times. Some people do nearly all the time, and they are NOT always the ones who are obvious. The tearing down can come from places and people we would not expect, and it may happen to others we do not know, and who to us seem to have everything.

More building up than is needed never hurts, less always does.

But it must be honest. Fake praise is patronizing, and instead of saying “I believe in you,” it says, “I know of nothing good to say about you, and you are also not worth my honesty and my time. Lies are good enough for you.”

There has been such a renewed spirit of honesty and kindness lately that I think we are all encouraged.

Blindness

The second lesson was “I was blind and now I see,” which of course is based on Christ’s healing of the man who had been blind from birth. And how many different kinds of blindness there are! Apart from the obvious lack of sight in that the eye doesn’t function, what about looking without understanding? Seeing only what we expect to see? Being blind to other people’s needs, or views? Failing to see new things, ask questions and gain knowledge, perspective, and relate the new to the old, and make even more of both? There is so much more to sight than simply having eyes that tell you what is in front of you.

Surely every day you could say, quite truthfully, I was blind to that, but now I see it. If we are not seeing more, understanding more each day, then that was a day wasted. How often do we say, “Now I see what that means”?

And the man who was given his sight by the Lord (aren’t we all?) was filled with gratitude and belief, and increasingly so as the days went on. But many did not wish to believe what he said, or used it as an opportunity to attack, instead of to be enlightened. Sometimes sight, then, obliges us to acknowledge things we preferred not to see, because they upset our preconceptions.

Sight is an obligation as well as a blessing. But then the eyes and the mind (the ability to receive the inner sight given by the Holy Spirit) are blessings that if not used may eventually be taken from us. It is a divine privilege, not a divine right, to have the eyes and the time and the things of beauty, physical and spiritual, in front of us. Another reason to use the ‘daylight’ of life, because when the ‘night’ is here, then there will be no more work done.

Seeing such beautiful sights as this is a blessing that must be used and appreciated.
Photo by Anne Perry, 2007.

All those lessons mean so much more than the simple, main story told on the surface. They bear being read and studied, and shared with each other many times.

Different Perspectives

One of the most rewarding things is to hear what other people have seen in them and are willing to share. So often it is something marvellous that I have not thought of, whether it be someone’s own thoughts or something they have read or heard.

One brother said that on the “I Am the Light of the World” lesson, “Darkness is the absence of energy” — apparently a quote from Stephen Hawking. I thought a lot about that. The lack of energy — the lack of life, light, love, the very essence of being — the lack of doing anything — all are negativity. Surely God is energy for good — the fire of the spirit which in words is the love which creates.

We should never be passive! At peace, of course, listening, of course — but never apathetic, uncaring. We cannot afford to be passengers in Creation. We are the children of God; we too must be energy — light — the force of life, which is love.

It will take a long time to get there. We can see the stars in the distance, and there are a lot of dark, untrodden paths between us and them — as there is between where we are and where God has reached. He is also close as our skins, as the voice within us). We don’t know the path from here to there, but He does. He has walked it before us.

We go through life one step at a time. That can be very frightening at times, but it is the way forward, and one step is all we can take at a time anyway! We know who we are, and who we may become. We know that our Father wants us to succeed, therefore He will help us all that is possible, without making it impossible for us by taking away our chance to grow.

If only I could remember that all the time, and not just when I write — or calm myself to remember, and think!

I’m working on it! We all are. I wish you God’s speed on your journey.

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