Light Rules

I once heard a story about a young man who was fascinated by light. He equipped his pick-up with several varieties of headlights. At one point he was thrilled to obtain an airplane landing light. He was able to affix it on his car. He took a friend of mine up into the mountains and demonstrated its brightness by turning it on into rather dense foliage. All became visible, including some very shocked deer looking bewildered at the intensity of the light. The young man was one night driving in the mountains and happened to be come upon another car. At the time he had just his regular headlights on. The other driver coming his way flashed his brights signaling that the young man’s lights were too bright. The young man in turn flashed his light indicating that his headlights were at their normal setting (of course I imagine they were a little on the bright side given his fascination). The two drivers exchanged several more brightening signals until the young man finally became frustrated and went ahead and turned on his airplane landing light. Needless to say the other driver stopped in his tracks and from then on discontinued his brightening. Now, I think the story is funny, though I don’t know how happy I’d be if I was the other driver, it was a rather “in your face” moment. But, I was recently thinking about this story in working with my clients.

Many of the kids I work with have come from some heinous situations and have had to deal with dark evil. The best remedy for this is to shine an intensely bright light, to have an “in your face” moment with evil. So, we talk about truth, we face it in all of its ugliness and beauty. There is no hiding when you shine a light that bright.

I’ve also been thinking about light in terms of Christmas. I love the fact that a bright star was one of the signs of Christ’s birth. He brought light into a dark world. I marvel at the feeble attempts of society to try and dim His light. Congress has attempted to ban members from wishing their constituents a Merry Christmas. Some historians have attempted to change the term B.C. (Before Christ) to B.C.E. (Before Common Era). All across the country attempts are being made to stamp Christ out of Christmas from vandalizing to outlawing nativity scenes. Try as they might their attempts will fail. You simply cannot shut off that bright of a light. People will continue to celebrate Christmas, and will do so with the true spirit of Christ. Even if they try to change it to the Common Era, they will never be able to hide the fact that the Common Era started with the birth of Christ.

His light will not be darkened. We just need to have eyes to see the truth. The sun rules the day, the moon and stars rule the night. No matter how dark it is the light always rules.

Merry Christmas and may we all continue to follow His light in wisdom, faith, hope and love.