Advent Reflection on Light

Glade Farm House

December 2001; revised December 2013

In the beginning

when God began to create

the world was without form

        and void.

And on the first day

God created light.

When time and space erupt

energy mingles with matter

        darkness with light

and universe takes form.

When fourteen billion years

        dissipate

into dark cold distance

a soft rumble  echoes

         across the void.

On a remote shore

        the blue oasis

bathed in warm light

teems with life

        wondrous forms

striving over eons.

Into the blessed garden

        of God’s continuous creation

emerges mind, and soul.

And the mind wonders:

        What is man

                that Thou are mindful of him?

And the soul fears: all

        is emptiness

                and striving after the wind.

To the mind God reveals:

        in the beginning

        with the searing light of physical creation

        even then was Word

And to the soul, God gives of himself:

        A child

        full of grace and truth

Across the ages

God’s creative and redemptive light shines

        beacon to mind and soul

        and the darkness cannot overcome it

                even to the end of time.