Only New Light
The world is full of only new light. Every instant every ray that is born from every source is brief and bright and breaks upon whatever surface it strikes bouncing until it has spent its energy and is no more.
“Let there be light,” He said, and there was light, and it kept being, only being, never traveling forward or backward in time, only existing in the moment by moment of existence’s ever-present, ever hastening duration. We only see because it is, and in that great relational paradox, it is only because we see. By it we see everything else, but it itself cannot be seen by us. When we see it, it is gone.
Going, going, gone.
Light is too quick to catch. They say that if we were to advance our speed to catch up to it, we would grow in mass to such a degree that all else would become null and void, but imagine this is not the case. Imagine such speed is possible. Perhaps in this imagining catching light is not possible, but approaching it is. Imagine we gain enough to trace a beam’s path across the room. Imagine we can watch it bounce off the wall. What would we see?
See it tall and grow shorter. See is swift and slow down. See is glimmer and dim. See it flame. See it feeble. Know it sure and strong, waver and grow weak.
The lively shinings of its youth are now subdued, simpler, still full of laughter but for shorter periods of time. As it splashes against the surface it finds – for find some surface it must, be that surface sickness or sadness os simply time – the light illuminates all that is fair, and the treasures of life come in sharp relief. Love, love, love, love, love…
Rage. Rage against the dying of the light.
We slow back down. The light is spent. The room goes dark. I weep.
Oh, great Light of the World, shine on us now. Oh, great Light of the world, shine on us now. Raise up every fallen beam. Reignite every extinguished spark. Fill this world with the radiance of our snuffed out loved ones until our temporal eyes cannot contain the brightness, and we are consumed in the glory of all things, all men, all women, all grandfathers and grandmothers made new.