Loving Light

I really rather stumbled upon the synchroblog last month by way of Kathy Escobar’s blog and I’ve got to tell you that on my first ever visit, I found the idea fascinating. The concept of asking fifteen or so like-minded folks to weigh in with their own perspective on a particular topic and to share their thoughts in an honest, non-anonymous forum, I thought was great!

I just let a curious word slip in there though didn’t I? “Like-minded.”

So looking at the Easter-themed subject of what it might mean to Christianity if the resurrection were a hoax, I thought, “what might I contribute, as a most probably unlike-minded secular humanist?” I don’t make it a habit of wading in to areas where I might not be welcome, and the synchroblog seemed to have a decidedly Christian tone, but I felt drawn to the resurrection topic. Why? Frankly because any resurrection event requires the temporary suspension of the laws of nature, which is inherently unprovable and unrepeatable; so the notion of whether or not it really happened struck me as almost, well…peculiar.  My reaction was, “it really shouldn’t matter.”

In other words, I felt it is a slippery slope for those whose faith is predicated on miracles, to set about trying to “prove” their reality in the scientific sense of the word.  Faith by its very definition means one believes something without relying on any proof that it happened.  Hmmm,  I thought I might actually be able to add an alternate perspective to this conversation after all.

I should also point out that I was well past the deadline by the time I found the site, but I took a quick look at the blog’s “about” page and saw this sentence,

“We value respectful conversation and dialogue and honor our differences.”

With that commendable confirmation, I decided to put my thoughts on virtual paper and sent my tardy piece in any way. And to the absolute credit of the blog owners, my potentially “unlike-minded” piece, “No Resurrection Proof Required: the rational brain vs. the believing brain“, was allowed in spite of its truancy!

Now as luck would have it for someone easing in to the synchroblog water so to speak, this month’s requested subject is about keeping things light. Perfect! I can definitely do “light.”

I love light! In fact, I find injecting a little “light” by way of a joke or a smile here or there is a great way to relieve the pressure, particularly when things get tense (as they sometimes do when the topic turns to religion).  A word of warning though, I’ve noticed that too much levity regarding religion can sometimes come across as flippancy…and those in the soul-saving business don’t take too kindly to flippancy.  Eternity is serious business.

But on the other hand, injecting too much gravity can lead to, well, some scary stuff that I won’t go in to here. “light…must keep it light!” Ok…I’m back.

With that, I’ll close out this light (adjective) post by talking about light (noun) itself.

Light. It’s a gorgeous and fantastic thing.  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet – and these are just the colors found in the narrow band of frequencies visible to our human eyes. There is so much light beyond our own vision!  Light is embedded deeply in to the language of the cosmos. It allows us to journey deep in to the past, to examine ancient stars in various phases of formation and destruction, to marvel at galaxies from as far back in time as 13 billion years ago, and to know what elements are churning inside of distant celestial bodies.

Light helped Einstein noodle out that invariant characteristic of the universe which led his own impressive primate brain to determine that energy and mass are equivalent; beautifully written out in the world’s most famous equation E = mc² .

Of course light is responsible for our sense of sight, and by extension, our human perception of visual beauty. Our eyes evolved to capture light as it interacts with matter; then that light splashes against our brain, and finally gets translated in to the pictures of the world in front of us.

Van Gogh’s shimmering “Starry Night,” a view across the Great Smokey Mountains, a good book, the smiles on our children’s faces, a glance from our lover, a rainbow after a thunderstorm; all moments and memories made possible by light.

Pretty cool huh?

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Here’s the link list from the synchroblog:

• Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes – Lighten Up! 
• Maria Kettleson Anderson at My Real Journey - The Art of Passionately Lightening Up
• Melody Harrison at Logic and Imagination – {I Don’t Do Joy}
• Wendy McCaig - Lighten Up: Learning to Let Go From A Man Who Lost It All
• Carol Kuniholm at Words Half Heart – Resurrection Laughter
• R. Lee Bays at Southern Humanist – Loving Light 
• Alan Knox – Be Sarcastic With One Another 
• Patrick Oden at Dueling Ravens - Truth, Beauty, and Yodeling Pickles
• Tammy Carter at Blessing the Beloved – A Tricky Little Journey 
• Christine Sine at Godspace – Lighten Up: It Really is the Best Medicine 
• Glenn Hager -  Margaritas, Metallica, and A Serious Case of the Giggles.
• Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – A Spoonful of Sugar 
• K.W. Leslie at More Christ – When Jesus Made A Funny
• Maurice Broaddus – Why So Serious? 
• Ellen Haroutunian – A Laughing God 
• Kathy Escobar at the Carnival in my Head – A Little Laughter Every Day

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