“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Light’s impacts are everywhere around us. They can be perceived in both the seen and unseen world’s, and its effects on us are numerous. Here are some of them below, in no particular order:
Light brightens us – within us and all around us.
Light changes our countenance, our perspective, and our own way of seeing things.
Light also changes our inner world which then transfers to our outer world. That is to say, the light within us transforms us.
And that’s the point: it illuminates.
Light dispels any and all darkness. Light and darkness cannot co-exist together for they are both diametrically opposed to each other. When light enters a room the darkness has to flee, it must go. Just try turning the lights on in your living room when the sun has long past gone down.
In other words, light commands and darkness obeys. When light enters, the darkness has to go.
Light opens us up, like a flower that is well-taken care of by its owner. This light frees us up, allowing for our own unique petals to take shape and blossom. Along the way, it gives us permission to be our own true, authentic selves. Light, in this sense, is a liberator. It liberates the captive from anything that is not holy or founded on truth.
On the other hand, darkness keeps one captive and enslaved, shrivelled up and afraid to open up, like a dying flower that has been neglected from the love and warmth of its gardener. Darkness is a restrictive, suffocating, and terrorizing force. Stated another way, darkness is death and it can be likened to an avalanche that consumes and destroys everything in its downward path. At its core, it is pure evil for that is its motive and intent. In this way, light is love and darkness is hatred.
Light is also life. It is like the warm sunshine that caresses your face on a blue-skied day. Its warmth is both inviting and welcoming. The warmth on our sun-lit body reassures us that there is still goodness coming our way – in us, for us, and through us. This light is an embracing presence and its wholesome presence is always embracing. The sun’s rays literally changes us inside, in our heart. It is what our body, soul, and spirit most profoundly need.
In our own light is where we find our own freedom. And, it is where other’s can discover their own light and freedom.
Like the shape of a diamond, the impacts that light has on us all are vast and incomprehensible.
Dwight Van Middlesworth 