A Season of Re-Enlightenment
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
December 10, 2023
Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scripture reading for this morning is the Magnificat from Luke 1:46-55 from the New Revised Standard Version.
And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
As I continue down the journey of life, I have come to appreciate more and more the nighttime or early morning hours before the sun rises. Sometimes, I wonder if I am dreaming or if my mind finally has time to download the thoughts I have had during the day.
I find that if I am struggling with a message or with a conversation, I need to have with someone, I will go to bed thinking about it or even dwelling on it.
Then suddenly in the dark hours, I am awakened with a new clarity. Sometimes, I get up and begin to write and other times I find that the clarity is so intense, I cannot forget it – or even think about anything else.
As I have done some research, I learned that some of the most important ideas have come to people in the middle of the night or during sleep. They even have put them in a kind of top ten list of importance. Just listen to what all has come to people in the middle of the night.
10. The discovery of the structure of the benzene molecule by Michael Faraday
9. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the novella by Robert Louis
Stevenson
8. I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, the Rolling Stones song by Keith Richards
7. Frankenstein, the novel by Mary Shelley (I think that might have been a
nightmare)
6. Terminator, the movie(s) and movie characters by James Cameron
5. Yesterday, the Beatles song by Paul McCartney
4. The model of the atom, conceived by physicist Neils Bohr
3. The invention of the sewing machine by Thimonnier
2. The periodic table of chemical elements, by Mendeleev
1. The theory of relativity, by Einstein
In the bible times this physical and human experience was often consider having a vision, yet I think I might label it enlightenment.
I do find it ironic that it often comes in the darkness of night, almost like an inner light gets switched on. That seems so Quakerly, doesn’t it. God is switching on our inner light.
Can any of you relate to this?
When have you been enlightened?
When has the light bulb in your head switched on suddenly, illuminating fresh insight or wisdom?
We are in what some consider a season of light, and I would add a season of enlightenment.
Hanukkah which started on this past Thursday is the Jewish festival of lights – remembering the story of the Jewish people reclaiming their temple after occupation by a Syrian-Greek dynasty.
In haste to re-establish temple customs, they lit a lamp, thinking it would only have enough oil to burn for a day – but it miraculously remained lit for 8 days. Hence the eight crazy nights of menorah-lighting during Hanukkah.
Like Hanukkah, Christmas is a season of lights, as well. Jesus is identified in the scripture as the “light of the world.” The three wise men were led to the site of his birth by the light of a brilliant star.
It’s a season of candles and colorful lights glowing on our houses. This season is almost better in the dark. Even mother nature follows suite and shortens the day, so it is darker longer. We get up in the dark and go to bed in the dark.
And I believe it is a season to become enlightened. To notice and amplify or magnify the light that shines within us all, revealing inner wisdom and guidance for our lives.
Not that long ago, the world was dark at night. No light bulbs, to say nothing of computer and television and smart phone screens. Candles were dim by comparison. The second the sun went down, it was a very, very dark world.
Our family once went to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and after descending into the bowels of the cave, the guide had us all gather and put our hands in front of our faces. Then he turned off the lights. It was so dark we could not even see our hand inches from our face. The guide then explained that before light pollution that is how dark the world was for everyone, and how important it was to live by the sun rising and setting. Today, we must go deep into the bowels of a cave just to get away from all the light from our many screens. There are very few places not effected by light pollution anymore. This is why some children in big cities tell their teachers they have never seen stars.
But for all the light we’re able to produce and enjoy today, are we much more enlightened than people were a century or two ago?
It’s a brighter world, but are we that much brighter as a result?
In some ways, perhaps we’re dimmer…. Cutting ourselves off from direct human contact by our focus on those screens… obsessing about unimportant stuff… lost in consumerism… out of touch with nature and the outdoors…. so many people not caring about their neighbors, not even knowing their names…
Our eyes are open, but do we really see?
We need to be re-enlightened, so that we can appreciate the world with awe and wonder again. And that’s the promise of both Hanukkah and Christmas.
In her poem and our scripture text for today, the Magnificat, Mary, the mother of Jesus, said that her soul magnified the Lord.
A little flicker of divine inner light, amplified by our attention, is enough to reveal what is going on inside of us, and guide us toward our best and highest aims. A little bit of oil in the lamp goes a long way.
The 14th century Christian mystic and priest, Meister Eckhart, used the image of sparks in an outdoor fire that yearn to return to their source in the pure divine light of the highest heaven. The sparks are so intent on returning that they extinguish themselves on the way up.
Eckhart believed that in the same way, all of us yearn to connect the spark of light within us with the divine source of that light. Thus, we Quakers gravitate toward Eckhart’s enlightenment (some even consider him a Quaker mystic.)
But to get there, he says we must do what campfire sparks do as they disappear on their way upward – we must release our egos and our selfish ways to enter a higher level of consciousness.
I remember just a few weeks ago struggling with my talk for the Spirit and Place event on Silence. For two days straight, I had written, re-written, deleted, wrote again, tried physically writing instead of typing on a computer, yet nothing was coming. So, ironically, I entered complete silence and went to bed rather frustrated. Yet in going to bed, I was forcing myself, what I wanted to accomplish, and even my ego of sounding educated and prepared, aside. At 3 am, I awoke as though it was time to get up for my day. I went downstairs, opened my computer and what I was going to say just poured out of me. It was as if during the darkness each thought I had been wrestling with found its place and a clarity had appeared without me in the way.
This has happened on other occasions, but I sometimes wonder what other forms of enlightenment await me.
As well, I am wondering what enlightenment might come to you and me this Christmas – in this season of re-enlightenment? Because let’s be honest, it is not just about what happened on the first Christmas, but what God is birthing anew right now in the present moment.
Back when I was in the process of becoming an Anglican priest, I was studying the liturgy of the Christmas Mass. At the time our pastor’s wife was helping start a church in Mexico. As we were discussing the Christmas Mass, she opened my eyes to something very interesting. She said that the Spanish word for “birth” is “dar la luz” – which literally means to “give light”.
So, on Christmas day in Churches within Spanish speaking cultures they say that Mary gave light instead of birth. Thus, Mary was enlightened.
At Christmas, each of us are delivered into the light of Christ-consciousness once again. A birth, and a re-birth. We celebrate a profoundly beautiful myth that takes hold of our souls, and leads us into deep compassion toward ourselves, toward those near and dear to us, toward the whole human family, and toward our precious earth and its ecosystem. It is a holistic re-enlightenment.
This all brings new meaning to those words we sang at the Blue Christmas Meeting for Worship a few weeks ago…
O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
Or as a visual person, I love at our Christmas Vespers watching the warm glow of candlelight fill the Meetinghouse as we prepare to sing Silent Night. The act of sharing our light with our neighbor and seeing the impact it has on the darkness is a visual representation of God’s enlightenment in our lives and how we are to share it with the world.
And lastly, considering all this, it reminds me of a favorite poem, “Our Greatest Fear” by Marianne Williamson.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
So, this morning as we enter waiting worship, take a moment to ponder the following queries:
1. When have I been enlightened to a new insight or wisdom?
2. In this season, how might I prepare myself to be enlightened?
3. How might I “give light” to my world as Mary did the First Christmas?