Light, Life and the Incarnate Word

The incarnate Word is with us,

is still speaking, is present

always, yet leaves no sign

but for everything that is.

-Sabbaths, 1999, IX, Wendell Berry

^“ For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

    -2 Peter 1: 17-19

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. 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.” -John 1

The incarnate Word is with us. Emmanuel – God with us. Like a lamp shining in a dark place.

Darkness, thick darkness, everywhere dark darkness – in the Ukraine, in Crimea, in Syria, in Fukushima, in Kabul, in Arizona, darkness in human trafficking, darkness in drone attacks, darkness in drug cartels, in a church office, in a movie theatre, in a shopping mall, in a classroom of young children, darkness in warming oceans, darkness in Congress, darkness in oil tar sands, darkness in the Gulf, darkness in racism, in militarism, in materialism, in objectivism, darkness thick darkness in religious chauvinism, religious egotism, religious bigotry, darkness thick darkness in our hearts, in our minds, in our souls, thickening, darkening, dark places in back alleys and on the streets, in abandoned and foreclosed farms and factories, in coal fires darkening the skies, poisoning the air, polluting the streams as we blow mountain tops to smithereens so as to burn more darkness, thicken the darkness, feel the darkness, breathe the darkness, swallow the darkness.

The incarnate Word is with us. Emmanuel – God with us. Like a lamp shining in a dark place.

Light. The Word is life, and his life is the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not, has not, will not, cannot overcome it. We will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in our hearts.

May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May, Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning – he who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. How can we embody this Light?

Creation lives by light. Leaves turn green with light. Leaves produce oxygen that sustains life by light. Trees store light’s energy. Atoms split, light emits, energy is released, energy that can sustain or destroy. Just ask Hiroshima and Nagasaki what it is like. Or, look at your local nuclear power plant that powers your iPad, iPod, iPhone, i-yi-yi-yi…

The incarnate Word is with us. In all that is. In leaf and tree, bird and song, the light shines and shines and shines for 13.7 billion years of shining, beginning with one micro-second of flash, boom, bang.

On The Theory Of The Big Bang and The Origin of The Universe

I.

What banged?

II.

Before banging,

how did it get there?

III.

When it got there,

where was it?

-Wendell Berry, Leavings

Berry is a farmer. He works the soil, he plants trees, he tends to animals, he enters into the rhythms of life on earth, in earth, of earth. He knows incarnation. He knows life and death. He sees how we casually poison the earth, air and water which form the basic elements of life on earth. How we covet darkness over light, space over time, things over being. He observes Sabbath time, looking at, reflecting on, our relationship, or not, with things that shine light and bring life to earth. Walking the hills and valleys, listening to the river, worshipping among a timbered choir of light, living light, light enlivening leaf and wood and tree and the creatures that live therein.

Slowly, slowly, they return

To the small woodland let alone:

Great trees, outspreading and upright,

Apostles of the living light.

Patient as stars, they build in air

Tier after tier a timbered choir,

Stout beams upholding weightless grace

Of song, a blessing on this place.

They stand in waiting all around,

Uprisings of their native ground,

Downcomings of the distant light;

They are the advent they await.

Receiving sun and giving shade,

Their life's a benefaction made,

And is a benediction said

Over the living and the dead.

In fall their brightened leaves, released,

Fly down the wind, and we are pleased

To walk on radiance, amazed.

O light come down to earth, be praised!

-Wendell Berry, Sabbath Poems, 1986, I