Monday, July 11, 2022

The Rev. Anne Williamson

Lean Toward the Light

Rob’s reflection last Saturday reminded me of two things: a prayer and a song. The prayer was offered to me recently by my spiritual director – I don’t know the author of the prayer, but it so resonated with me in the initial hearing, and again after reading Rob’s reflection:

Jesus, Beloved Friend,

I come before you today in need of hope.

I need hope for a calm and joyful future.

I need hope for love and kindness.

I pray for peace and safety.

Some say that the sky is at its

darkest just before the light.

I pray that this is true, for today seems stormy and dim.

I need your light, Lord in every way.

I pray to be filled with your light.

Help me to walk in your light,

and live my life in your light.

In your name I pray, Amen.

The call to walk in the light, to lean into the light is so much a part of contending with the darkness around us, when the day or the days (weeks, months?) seem stormy and dim. The song I believe I have shared before; the songwriter and singer is Carrie Newcomer, described by Parker Palmer as a ‘prairie mystic. Her song ‘Lean in toward the Light’ encourages that work of, well, leaning into the light, and in her words ‘practicing resurrection’:

‘Today is now, tomorrow beckons
Lean in toward the Light
Keep practicing resurrection
Lean in toward the Light
The shadows of this world will say
There's no hope why try anyway?
But every kindness large or slight
Shifts the balance toward the light’

As Rob reminded us on Sunday, a practice of walking in love, in the light, is the practice of kindness. A reminder of the words of the prophet Micah – ‘what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.’ May it be so.

Blessings,

Anne