Choose the Light of Life!

He made a world from love of life 
and beauty, work and rest.  
For rest he made the night. 
For work, the day, 
and governing them both 
he made the light: 
a sun to silt the day with gold, s
a moon to silver through the lovely dark.

His hands plunged deep into
moist earth, newly made  
and healthy, rich with promise.
With tender care and staggering intelligence
he blended atoms into cells, a body--
Adam, Earth-one, firstborn human. 
His Spirit, hovering, whispered love
and filled the body with a soul
from his own breath of life.

Then from that same flesh, 
kindly put to sleep, he levered out
a rib and gently, with delight,
he made the woman, counterpart.
And Adam knew he was a man
and she his mate, his love.

They ruled. They basked in light,
laughing in sunshine and moonbeam
alike. They talked with God.
They fingered stars. The earth
responded gladly to their touch,
grew green. They rested by clear water,
picked fruit from bush and tree . . .

until they reached too far.

They fell, and stumbled into death.
Now daylight heat grew out of bounds, 
the sun’s rays sucking beads of sweat
or hiding, letting in the cold.
And night became a flickering menace,
sometimes silken with slivered 
shafts of light, or sinister, 
sheltering snakes in the grass.

But, loathing the deceit 
that threw his humans into hell,
the Father crafted a way out.
It would take Light, real light, 
to cut through glitter and mirage, 
hallucination, solutions leading nowhere.
It needed Truth, to show up deceit
as sham.  The lie had birthed 
a wretched race that lived to die.
His Word of Truth would be
the Breath of Life and Love
sent to recreate creation. 

And so the Spirit blew,
winds shifted, a child was born.
This new Earth-one came to life
to live among the darkened ones, 
a flame they either loved, 
and huddled close to know, 
or hated for its piercing heat—
so snuffed it out, not knowing
this was Light, unchanging, 
source of every other light,
the very Glory. Snuffing backfired.
It burned anew, and flamed,
and Life and Light broke through
and there was nowhere left to hide.

Be shown up for what you are,
Adam, Eve! And either choose to see
this Truth or turn your backs! 
And then your shifting shadow
is the shape of all your instability, 
false starts and stumbling, 
and leaps that land on nothing.  
You embrace the Fall in all your falls,  
tumbling helpless as water, slave to gravity.
Down. Lost. To the grave.

But if you breathe in Word of Truth,
you breathe in Life and are restored—
to grow in health and wholeness,
to belong to a new humanity 
that walks in glowing sunlight daily
but is never burned. You see the Way. 
Through nights of patient waiting,
the path stays lit before you.
Snakes in the grass slip aside.

You watch in hope for your beloved
Earth-One, invisible, yet bright
in every sudden flash of insight,
whose quiet passing is marked
by the wind breathing Life.
He will return in person.  
And you will come to rest 
in a world of peace made new,
where Light and Truth are loved
and snakes no longer threaten.

Right now I live the story every day.
Tempted, choosing “just this once,”
I fall. Each fall births wretched death;
peace is perturbed, life sickens.
Turning to the Light, healed 
by flaming purifying rays,
I find fertility: life birthing life, 
growth to green the world, 
healing for me and for the nations.
This is the answer: choose Life!

Advent is a time of reflection for those who have chosen to live in the Light. Let’s set these weeks aside to express deep gratitude for that breakthrough moment in earth history when the Word, who was and is the Light, was born to rescue us from the dark!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created. ⁴ Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men. ⁵ That light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it. . . .¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was created through Him, yet the world did not recognize Him. ¹¹ He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. ¹² But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, ¹³ who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.  (John 1:1-4,10-14 CSB)