Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 11 verses 8 through 10:
8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, [they] were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”
Jacques Lusseryan was a blind French resistance fighter imprisoned by the Nazi's in Buchenwald. In his memoir Lusseryan tells how though blinded at age eight, he later discovered within himself an ability to sense where objects were and at what distance around him. It was a new power to see the world in a new way. He called this power the light within. Yet when Lusseryan was arrested by the Nazis, his fear and anger diminished the power of the light within. Lusseryan found himself no longer able to navigate the interior of Buchenwald as he had the outside world. He had lost his light. Part of his memoir is about Lusseryan's learning to recover the light within.
The Quakers teach that we are all born with an inner light. The light is fueled by a sense of peace and connection to the people and world around us. There is a oneness in the source of this light. This is the inner light which allows us to walk in even the darkest of places and not stumble or fall.
Anger, frustration, fear, and hatred diminish the light. These things darken our spirit and blind us to the light within ourselves and within others. Blind rage is the ultimate diminishment of the inner light.
Pause. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and try to get in touch with the source of the light within. Stay in touch with it. Welcome it. As you breathe, imagine the light waxing the energy of oxygen from your own spirit. Stay in that place of light for a few moments.
And now, ask the light to go with you throughout your day and welcome it as your guide wherever you go -- even into anxious, stressful, and dark places.
The light of the world is within you; believe in it.
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