One of Us

I like Brian Andreas as both a poet and an artist. A piece of his art and poetry graces the entrance to my study. It is on the wall nearest where I often hear the joy of children animating the life of Hilltop.

One of my favorites is: “I once had a garden filled with flowers that grew only on dark thoughts but they need constant attention & one day I decided I had better things to do.” I am at an excellent, light-filled, place right now: I do not have time to tend flowers grown by dark thoughts. My life is full of tremendous light, but I wonder if this thought piece might not be helpful in moments of darkness?

This is my thought: How much energy do we spend cultivating flowers that only grow on our darkest thoughts?

In the Gospel of John we are told that darkness is a hopeless drill if we are really followers of the Christ: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5 ) and later that same community, if not the same author would write in 1st John – “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7) and later in the Gospel of John "… But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” (John 11:10)

But we all stumble and commence with watering and caring for flowers that only grow from dark thoughts. But watering and caring for those plants that thrive on dark thoughts – they can be at times so beautiful; the colors they display so addictive. I know how to create problematic beauty out of gossip, low expectations and self-indulgence, including the most self-indulgent idea of all … the dark idea that everyone else needs to change, but I am just fine, thank you, very much. How dark is that? 

Sticking with John “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:19-21) -- so Jesus gets it. When we gossip and have low expectations and we are focused only on “our” needs we are acting as Jesus said we would and we love what Jesus said we would – darkness: Human Condition 101.

We say, “But those flowers in the garden are so alluring, so gorgeous – don’t tell me I have to give them up ….”

Paul would say to two of his churches in Thessalonica and Colossae – “For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness” (1 Thessalonians 5:5) and “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).

I think what Paul and Jesus and John, and yes, maybe even Brian Andreas are all saying is that caring for plants that thrive on darkness doesn’t work. I wonder what would happen if we made a choice to try and be Stained Glass People. An anonymous poet once wrote – “People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out. But in the darkness, beauty is seen only if there is a light within.”

George Fox – the Founder of the Quakers – believed that with enough study, enough self-reflection, enough time set aside to truly focus on scriptural and personal holiness, we could with God’s help learn how to turn on that inner light. Maybe Fox was suggesting just a moment or twenty that we should reflect on how we really let this light of the world (Jesus), really light our world. I guess the alternative is to keep caring for those flowers that only grow on dark thoughts. The choice is ours … and cultivation within ourselves the light of God’s understanding can be a thing of beauty … all we have to do is recognize that beauty takes us to a higher place … maybe evenly a heavenly higher place …. Where do we want to be and what do we want to be?

Returning to Brian Andreas and this is what is on my wall nearest the children: “Someday, the light will shine like a sun through my skin & they will say, What have you done with your life?; though there are many moments I think I will remember, in the end, I will be proud to say, I was one of us.”

I am proud to be “one of us.” Us is the us that are followers of the Risen Lord, the "People called Methodists", but perhaps most proud of all, a people who seek to manifest belonging, believing and becoming in their very essence, to be people of light, not darkness, to be like Stained Glass.

Let me invite all of us to pray the following daily: 

"O God of Light – continue to pursue us with your love so that through your Grace we can reject the darkness that comes with gossip and self-indulgence and other sins that we commit when we forget that your son – Jesus the Christ – is truly the light of this world. Amen.”

Selah, Pastor Dennis