A Meditation on The Feast of William Temple
November 6, 2024
Your word is a lantern to my feet
and a light upon my path. (Psalm 119:105)
I hear children on the athletic field
across from my house
across from my house
laughing and shouting in warm sunshine.
I contemplate the twists and curves of the now-bare branches of the maple trees,
having been stripped of their final fall glory
by yesterday’s wind.
I linger in uncertainty;
the day and the laughter are bright,
creation offers beauty in bareness,
I am loved,
and I am afraid
I seek a path to walk.
Your word is a lantern to my feet
and a light upon my path.
I seek sure footing to move forward
with hope and joy and trust in God’s goodness.
I seek a way through familiar landscapes now obscured,
tendrils of shadows reaching to conceal and confuse
the way of love.
Your word is a lantern to my feet
and a light upon my path.
And I know with certainty
that the True Light,
which enlightens everyone,
came into this world,
is eternally coming into this world.
And I have been promised,
that God is at work in me,
that God is at work in you,
enabling us to choose goodness
and justice and dignity and compassion.
I have witnessed how that Light,
mingled sorrow and love
on a cross;
pouring salve on the world’s wounds
salvation for the broken
salvation for the contemptuous
salvation for the lost and lonely
salvation for the fearful
salvation for the hopeful
salvation for all
a redemption that can barely be imagined.
Your word is a lantern to my feet
and a light upon my path.
So once more I step out into the light,
the true light,
and I remember that I am also a light bearer--
we are light bearers.
We are light bearers for one another,
and we do not walk alone.
We are light bearers,
as life goes on.
We are light bearers,
dispensing compassion and diffusing hostility,
cradling the vulnerable and protecting the joyous,
binding up the broken-hearted and filling the hungry with good things.
We are light bearers.
We belong to God.
We give ourselves over to love,
over and over,
because Love so amazing, so divine,
demands our souls, our lives, our all.*
And that Love never lets us go.
* last stanza of the hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
