Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” ~ John 8:12
In the daily dimming light of a Colorado late afternoon in May, 2020, we took a quarantine-approved outdoor stroll along a mountain path near Monument Rock in the shadow of the Rockies foothills. The descending sun setting in the west over the purple hued Mount Hermon sent fingers of light that touched our figures and cast long shadows up the pathway ahead of us. It all seemed somehow like a cliche scene written for a cheesy novel. And yet it was a real scene for the pages of our own story. Having just turned seventy the week before, this sonnet was written out of my own pensive pool of pandemic ponderings about light and life along the pathway to seventy.
SHADOWS OF LIGHT
As shadows lengthen on this path of life
We walk unknowing what’s ahead, yet still
We walk with faith the daily dimming light
Will ‘luminate our fragile hope until
We round some distant bend into a sheath
Of shadow, that we cannot pass but through,
A darkened veil of human pain and grief
That we resist but never can subdue.
A final step, a passing breath of prayer:
“O, Lord, have mercy,” as the dark descends.
But in that heartbeat shadows disappear,
Swallowed up in light that all-transcends.
Enlightened then we’ll see with undimmed eyes
The risen One who said, “I am the life”
(c) 2020 Clay Clarkson