Many years ago my grandmother, Sophia Sporer Key, promised me five dollars if I would memorize the prologue of John’s Gospel. So I did and she sent me a five dollar bill.
This morning as I read John’s prologue yet again, I read “What has come into being in him was life and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
My first association with that text is the memory of that five dollar bill. I am not positive that was the bill I had with me one day when I walked seven short blocks to Spotlight, the neighborhood store, but it probably was.
I knew the contents of the shop by heart, not what real food may have been in it, but the candy and small packages of toys. That gift empowered me to purchase pretty much everything I wanted at Spotlight.
Illogically, the morning that I stepped across the threshold of the little shop with such wealth symbolizes God’s great and sure provision for me today as I am crossing another threshold – that of joining the community of spiritual directors and writers as one of them.
But maybe this symbol is not actually illogical. John tells us that Jesus, this man who originated with God in the beginning, was the light of all people, the light that shines in darkness. As a child I took all that I had to spend it in the spotlight, returning home with the sweetest things I could buy along with toys to delight myself and others. I was doing the best I could imagine with a gift from Sophia, my grandmother, who forever was calling her family’s attention to the Light. Simultaneously I was preparing myself for a profound experience of kenosis, the emptying of myself in the Light of God of everything I thought I had, in order to be filled by God for the work that remains.
Today’s crossing feels daunting. But I know that I am well resourced for the work that awaits me in the humility of my life. I am ready, grateful and calm.
This morning as I read John’s prologue yet again, I read “What has come into being in him was life and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
My first association with that text is the memory of that five dollar bill. I am not positive that was the bill I had with me one day when I walked seven short blocks to Spotlight, the neighborhood store, but it probably was.
I knew the contents of the shop by heart, not what real food may have been in it, but the candy and small packages of toys. That gift empowered me to purchase pretty much everything I wanted at Spotlight.
Illogically, the morning that I stepped across the threshold of the little shop with such wealth symbolizes God’s great and sure provision for me today as I am crossing another threshold – that of joining the community of spiritual directors and writers as one of them.
But maybe this symbol is not actually illogical. John tells us that Jesus, this man who originated with God in the beginning, was the light of all people, the light that shines in darkness. As a child I took all that I had to spend it in the spotlight, returning home with the sweetest things I could buy along with toys to delight myself and others. I was doing the best I could imagine with a gift from Sophia, my grandmother, who forever was calling her family’s attention to the Light. Simultaneously I was preparing myself for a profound experience of kenosis, the emptying of myself in the Light of God of everything I thought I had, in order to be filled by God for the work that remains.
Today’s crossing feels daunting. But I know that I am well resourced for the work that awaits me in the humility of my life. I am ready, grateful and calm.
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