light of Light

 One of the greatest painters of our modern time was Thomas Kinkade. He was born in 1958 and died in 2012 at the age of 54. What made his paintings so special is that he had a gift for capturing light in his paintings. He was called the “The Painter of Light.” If you’ve ever seen any of his paintings, you know this to be true.

Thomas Kinkade captured light in his paintings, I believe he painted this way because the light had captured him. There’s something about light that draws our eye and captivates our gaze.

Years ago, I took a class on photography and one of the things I learned was that the eye will automatically gravitate to the brightest object in the photo.

Maybe you may have taken a photo of your beautiful baby lying on a blanket on the hood of your car but if the sun is reflecting light

off your beautiful chrome bumper when you snap the photo - when you share the photo with family and friends, they will see the baby - but not until their eye is drawn away from your shiny new Bumper. Their eyes will naturally gravitate to the bumper because of the light.

 We experience the same scenario in the great outdoors. When you go camping there’s not a bug in the forest until later that evening when you light the lanterns. 

Then every neighboring bug comes for an overnight stay at your campsite, without being invited, and we thought they were there just for the food - but they all were drawn there by the light.

Light of Light:

At the very core of our being we are light and not just any light, but we are light of Light. Meaning that we are not only created by God, but we are created of God. We are made from God the very essence of His being.

Julian of Norwich the 14th century English mystic wrote:

“We are not simply made by God; we are made of God.”

We discover then at the deepest core of our being that we are light - and light is very good

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day Genesis 1:31

So, it’s in the depths of our true being, which is light, we encounter the essence (the intrinsic nature, the substance) of who we are, which is the image and likeness of God.

Adam’s fall has removed us farther and farther away from the light of our original being and blinded us to the pattern of our original design. 

However, the lit candle representing the incarnation of Jesus lights the way allowing us to see our proper value as represented by the lost coin in Luke 15:8-10. The lit candle also establishes our place of rightful belonging to the collective whole of humanity, represented by the ten pieces of silver to which the lost coin belongs.

We are not without value, and we are not without belonging! 

There’s no difference in the light that you bear and the light that I bear. All light discovers its origin in God. All light finds its harmony and rhythm in the security of union within its life’s source who is God.

When a father and mother look into the face of their newborn baby they are looking into the face of light. A new expression of the ancient glow. A new dynamic of the same. The same light as the firstborn but uniquely different in expression. 

All of creation is Fathered by the same Light - we are light of Light, the same substance as the Godkind.