light

When I was in my second (and last) year of dental hygiene school, I lived on the medical center campus, in an apartment building across campus from the dental school. For a few weeks at a certain time of year and in the late afternoons, I witnessed a peculiar phenomenon. As I’d walk home from school between the many buildings on the medical center, I came to a certain place where there would be a great pillar of light stretching high into the sky, reaching seemingly to heaven itself. It was huge and bright, a glorious thing to behold and I looked forward to the sight of it each day, for it was such a thrill to see, that it melted away every pain and trouble of the day’s work. I surmised that it was caused by the sun’s reflection on the many glass skyscrapers in the area, the pillar of light being created when all the reflections hit each other. And I happened to be at the right place at the right time. As the earth’s axis shifted with the season, the phenomenon ended. But thinking on it since, and even now, I can still feel the thrill it gave me, and the power the light had over me.

I have a dozen or so crystals hanging in my picture window in the living room. The afternoon sun shines in and the light is refracted through the crystals onto the walls. A breeze will make the crystals dance and the rainbows scatter and move. It, too, melts away the cares of the world.

There is power in light, more than just to illuminate our living. We know it to be the power of life itself, with the power to rejuvenate and strengthen all living things, including us, in both body and spirit. Even in death, we are told to go toward the light, toward life, the next life…