ooooh, the light!

We have been sopped in with fog for a long time--it feels like forever. The fog never lifts, the sun never breaks through, it is barely above freezing, and our eyes are getting used to the grayness. Friday I drove to Eugene and the sun was shining. I could barely see, the sun was so bright. When we headed back home, I could see to the north a wall of gray extending clear to the ground, and within just a few miles the sun was but a memory and the fog once again surrounded us, muffling sounds and dimming light.

I again drove to Eugene on Saturday, but this time when I drove home, the sun stayed with me and was out all day. It was a much noisier day at home and much brighter (and MUCH colder).

This morning was so beautiful, though. The sun was shining, frost glimmered on everything, and the birds were singing--not loudly, but rather subdued, as if the sunny morning were a matter-of-fact event, rather than a really exciting change of events.

But how accustomed we become to our environment and our culture and the evil around us,that pretty soon it all becomes "normal". We need to remember the sunshine, how glorious it feels and how it fills our hearts with joy and hope and anticipation. We need to remember the "good" in our lives and keep it always before us--those times when things went perfectly and we had little glimpses of what heaven must be like.

The fog wants to always settle down around us. It comes insipidly, falling silently like the snow. It blocks out the sunlight and mutes the sounds around us. It locks us into our own little spheres, lulling us into complacency. Pretty soon we become accustomed to our neighbor yelling at her grandchildren, the high school girls wearing too-tight clothes, the disrespectful language around us, hand signs and honking horns not meant to convey courtesy, "public displays of affection" that are more willful acts of lust than of affection, and lewd behavior in general. We need to recognize evil for what it is and rebel against even the littlest vestiges that waft down around us.

We can't always make the fog lift. There is evil all around us. But we can choose not to participate it in, not to react in kind, not to accept it as "normal", but to call it what it is. And we can fix our minds on the "good" things in life, the acts of kindness and selflessness, the beautiful things. We can be the light in our own little "spheres" and drive the fog off, at least in our realms.

Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."