I asked Jillian to contribute to our blog this week. I am grateful for her rememberances of our need for the Light and sacred spaces. She captures well the weariness and longing for togetherness felt at this time. Grateful for her voice in our Body. -Dianne
Almost everyone I know is tired. It feels like the world is pressing in on us – leaving us all exposed and vulnerable. My oldest son said it best when he said “Mom, this is all just weird and I don’t feel very secure."
I feel like 2020 has revealed all of our scattered bits; our fears, our need to feel in control, our need to be needed and wanted and seen and heard. It has revealed how busy and antsy and unsettled we really are. How do we find our way through to the clearing? We look for the light.
I’ve never been a fan of the limelight, never keen on the spotlight, but I always enjoyed the natural light; light from the sun. There is something mysterious and sacred and welcoming about natural light; it enhances the beauty of what is already there. I think in this particular season, in one way or another, we are all searching for the light. We are searching for familiarity in obscurity - a space that makes us feel alive and renewed and restored.
And if I am being honest, over the last couple of weeks I have really missed gathering together. I miss the cadence of our voices singing in unison. I miss the sound of our collective body reciting the liturgy. And I miss the gentle way the multicolored lights would cast through the stained glass windows. Sunday after Sunday my family would sit on the outer edge of the pews, close to the colored windows. I loved to watch the yellows and the greens and the purples dance on the floors beneath my feet. The multicolored lights filled me with wonder. I would find myself praying “God let the light hit me just. like. that. Let it dance around me and encompass every inch of me. Let the fragments of my broken bits be as beautiful as a stained glass window. Let me become a mosaic. We all desperately want to feel and see the light.
But what if the light isn’t just meant to dance around us? What if the light, it is meant to heal us?
We have a rare opportunity now to be fully human and take God out of our self-made boxes. We have an opportunity to find the light where we never knew it existed: In ourselves, in our homes - even in our own uncertainties. While I miss the light dancing beneath my feet in a church setting, I am learning that sacred places are everywhere. I hope that we will all search for those sacred spaces; the spaces that we feel secure enough to admit our insecurity yet still see our beauty; the space that we can be honest about our struggles and still feel deeply loved. I hope the light reveals our need and prompts us to be honest with God and where we are in our journey.
-Jillian Reed