Tending the Light

In the beginning was the Light, I reasoned. Faust had inspired the thought. That old, tired professor, still searching for meaning, attempts once more to translate Saint John’s familiar sentence. For “logos” he rejects “Wort” and “Sinn” (sense, mind, or meaning) as well as “Kraft” (force or power), concluding: In the beginning was the Act (“Tat”). When I chose the Light rather than the Act or the Word, I did so because that metaphor includes or is an essential part of the concepts suggested and rejected by Faust as well as the one he chooses. “Meaning” or “sense” is included in the idea of “enlightenment”; “power” of the spoken word leading to action is enhanced by its clarity. Light was, and still is, articulated in the Word and its articulation constitutes the Act.

To say “In the beginning” is to limit any statement of the truth. For the Light, the Word, or the Act is not only Alpha, but also Omega and all that flows between. As a living creature, I have to see, to hear, to feel, to speak where my own time crosses space. My responses to the Light involve both words and actions. Even if my words remain unspoken, they are not unregistered or unheeded within my own person; they have an audience in the silence. I may not choose to act (itself an inner act); but uncommitted acts bear fruit just as surely as committed acts. All this has meaning in terms of an abiding Light at the center, at the source, and at the end of my personal being as well as of all other beings. Just as the speed of light serves the scientist as a constant for measurement, the radiance of the Light serves me as a measurement for evaluating my thoughts, words, and actions. The infinite, yet unique, accessibility of the Light for others I recognize as I write of my own experience of it.