Daylight ... Savings

The time change has occured. It is now time to turn on your headlights when you leave work at 5pm. Yet something in the air seems fresher. As a friend said to me, 'it reminds me that time is passing, things are seasonal, there will be change.'

Change is hopeful news when you hear gunshots on your street on halloween, when your job sucks the life out of you, when your constantly reminded of your brokenness and you long for the fruit of the spirit.

A group of us were studying Acts Ch. 9. Besides the sensational stories of the work of the holy spirit, i was struck by the language of the chapter. Metaphors employed.

Saul is described as "breathing" threats. Breathing is such a rich word. It reflects intimacy of the threats, his involvment, and constancy. His closeness to the people being threatened, and the fear it invoked.

When Jesus blinds him with a flash of light from the heavens and turns Saul childlike (on the ground, led by the hand, unable to see) he is described: His eyes were open, but he could see nothing. This is literally true. He was phsyically incapable of seeing the matieral world around him. It is also spiritually true. Saul was a Pharisee, a man of God, deeply religious, yet he was blind to the reality of Jesus, so he killed and imprisoned the people who could see Jesus, the Messiah, Son of God.

Until he met Jesus on that road to Damascus.

I love layers, multiple layers, and language when it is not used lazily. When it is pushed to the maximum weight it can bare, and still have integrity. I love when you can read and re-read soemthing and be unable to put to words all that it means to you.

With the time change, I see new metaphors. In the darkness, each headlight, streetlight, light shining from a window is a metaphor: light piercing the darkness, light used to pursue clear vision, "let there be light" declares the University of California. In the darkness, I appreciate the light.

I am seeing new darkness: violence on the streets, terror in the slums of manila, jealousy, fear, evil lurking in my heart, and therefore I appreciate the light, the light of the holy spirit who is committed to me in all the seasons, the breathable lightness of being forgiven and of forgiving.

Mmmm I want more fo that light.