Fiat Lux

Beautiful, sparkling, clean white light brings peace and calm. Candlelight, twinkling stars, moonlight bouncing off new winter snow. We want reminders of this beauty that was created out of nothing by the Creator who is everything. It is soft to our hardened hearts, it is uncluttered to our littered thoughts, it is clean to our dirty souls.But in this world, nothing is as it seems. This fallen world, this ugly world. The illusions of perfection are only tricks of the eye choosing to see what it wants to.

A candle...clean, clear and bright. A shining warm white light in the darkness. So my eye sees.

An entire rainbow of colors contained it that small little flame...yellow, green, blue, red and violet. Looking closely my eye can see if it chooses, cool blue, warm reddish orange, sunny yellow and finally, the white that burns into my memory.
The stars above, twinkling and winking, so old and wise, looking down and softly chuckling at the babes peeking up. Little white pinpricks in a blanket of dark. White? Red dwarfs, blue giants, yellow suns, the faintest white and even brown.

It is an amazement to most children reconciling art and science, how the water cup quickly turns muddy gray when cleaning shades of blue and red and yellow from the paintbrush, but the prism reveals white to be the bearer of the rainbow. When we think of light, we want white to be clean and simple, but it isn't. A tool can break it down and sort it out so that each individual element is exposed. In my life of busy schedules and frantic days, I wish for that peace, that lumping together, that blending of colors to make one. It feels controlled and ordered. One is so much easier than many. Yet many and varied, is what the Lord has made.

Colorfully created is this world. Pink sunsets, red leaves, blue skies, green fields. What I see as clean and pure is truly the whole family of colors that God has made. It hurts to sort it out. It hurts to examine, like my soul hurts when scrutinizing my sins one by one. It's easier to lump. Lump and dump and move on. I like that very much.

A child sees God's palette and delights in it. They do not yet have the baggage, the extra burdens, the impossible To-do's, the never ending lists. They see each shade as enchanting. It captivates and charms them.These colored things are magical to a child. It is the color that makes them magical in a world so long bored with electric switches and cords and plugs. Electric glow is no new thing to them, it happens everyday, but color still fascinates their innocent eyes. And while I crave the clean, the crisp and the uncluttered, my soul aches to delight in this season with the eyes of a child... and in the only pure and holy Light worth fighting for.