Thursday, July 28, 2011

Dance to the Light

I'm so in love with light these days.  Partly due to my prayer for this year, that I would be filled with Light.  Partly due to the fact that my photographer sister, Rebecca, has helped me to admire various kinds of light.  Partly due to the fact that I have been noticing how much Light is spoken of in the Bible.  So much so, that I looked up the original Greek word to see what it meant in the original text.  It means what I thought it did:  

luminousness
{in the widest application, natural or artificial, abstract or concrete, literal or figurative}
[from an obsolete phao "to shine or make manifest" (especially by rays)]


I've started taking time during my morning devotions to ask the Lord to show me any darkness of my heart; He does, when something needs to be pointed out, and it is good.

My baby sister, Rebecca, (who is 17!) and I were recently at an outdoor performance in Big City... we didn't set out to attend originally, but circumstances brought us nearby, and so we stopped.  Becs and I love having random adventures in Big City and we both have a deep appreciation for artistic things. It was a performance by a local dance company; they were quite good.  I don't like most modern dancing for a number of reasons, but this was unique and refreshing and beautiful.  My favorite dance was one where five young women in colorful fluid dresses all danced around, and with, several globes of light that were raised and lowered by invisible wires.  At one point in the dance, the music stopped.  All the dancers but one remained perfectly still.  The one moving dancer spent several minutes just dancing in the silence around the lights as if there were some magical quality in the light that only she could see or hear.  All was perfectly silent for a few minutes under the summer twilight sky (well, as silent as a large crowd of Texans in the middle of a huge city can be). 

Becs (who is a ballerina herself) thought this silence a bit odd, so she leaned over and whispered, "why'd they turn off the music?"  I softly chuckled and answered that  I didn't know... "I guess she doesn't need music, she's just dancing to the light."  My own words struck me (always interesting when that happens)... isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing, I thought?  Tuning out the world's music and not just walking in the light, but better yet, dancing to and in the Light? 

Soon enough, the music started back again and all the dancers were back in motion.  But the lone dancer who danced only to only the light left an impression on me... not so much the dance itself, but the symbolism. 

There's a little note on my dresser now, a small piece of white paper where I'd printed "Dance to the Light" that night after I got home.  It reminds me not to drudge through life, or entertain darkness, but most of all to be in the Light and full of Light... to dance to the ebb, flow, joy, rhythm and light of Jesus.  JESUS is the LIGHT of the world, and the Light of me.   What a blessing.

"In Him was life, and the light was the light of men."  (Jn. 1:4)

2 comments:

Beloved's Redheaded Bride said...

A lovely post, Marianna. I love how God takes every day ordinary events to draw us closer to God by showing us things that go along with what we are studying in our devotions. The way you wrote it is very similar to what I have been doing lately.

Let me explain, I have moved things around in my day to focus more on the Lord. With character reference cards in the afternoon, church history book for the Little Lady during the day, and devotions for the Children in the evenings, I felt like I had a lot on my plate and felt that I was doing what I should. Two weeks ago, I felt a desire to do more indebth studies like I use to do so I am now writing the devotions and nuggets all out in letter form to my Children. It has been an intersting journey so far.

For some reason, writing devotions remind my of your sweet mother!

Have a bless day!
PS. I am reading some times I can't comment due to blogger glitches. (sigh)

Ryan said...

This is beautiful writing of a beautiful idea.