Photo Friday - "White"

Light

Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, "More light."  Sunlight.  Torchlight.  Candlelight.  Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators.  Big floods for the night games at Soldier's Field.  Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep.  Light is more than watts and footcandles.  Light is metaphor.  Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light.  

~Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

Light. Light that breaks through; light that shines on its own. Inescapable, unrefined, and real. 

Even still, the beauty of this light can be misused, spurned and turned from. It can be directed away from the purpose it pursues. 

What is light? Light gives light to the darkness, it illumines and enlightens, it prompts life-giving energy, I say.

Yet, what is to be said for when the light continues, but these essential qualities of its nature no longer persist?

Light. Light that does not give light to the darkness. Light that does not illumine. Light that does not give way to life.  Light used only to precipitate darkness and death. Light becomes  utility - acting toward an end which is against its nature. 

(i.e. - The lights used to illumine the evil deeds of the Holocaust)

Light. Light that is in keeping with the purpose it pursues. Light that illumines, enlightens, and gives way to life. Life that is radiant, incandescent, and transcendent. Light that blinds only to give sight to that which is robustly beautiful. 

Light that not only shines for its own sake but for the sake of another. Light that consumes impurity. Light that cannot be fully understood or grasped, but that lights a path to the greater journey at hand. This, my friends, is light - pure and unadulterated light.

Light that is all consuming, light that purifies and refines.

Let us look with our inner eyes at this great spectacle, our nature, which dwells for all eternity with the immaterial fire of the divinity. And let us take off the coats of skins (cf Gen. 3:21), the earthy and carnal ways of thinking, in which we were clothed because of our transgression, and stand on holy ground (cf Exod. 3:5), each one of us hallowing our own ground by means of virtue and reaching up to God. In this way we shall have boldness when God comes in light, and as we run to Him we shall be enlightened, and, once illumined, shall live for ever to the glory of the one brightness in three Suns, now and for ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

~St. Gregory Palamas - Homily 35

First Official Summer Entry

The first few Summer posts will be "catch up posts" - photos and such from over the course of the semester that have stacked up.

Catch up post #1: Washington D.C. Trip