lightning and light

My 19th year was a spiritually stormy time. Either I was devoutly going to worship and bible study and yet fearing I was about to be outted as an imposter, or I was slamming my bible in a drawer vowing to God never to read it again. The latter because I kept hearing "Not good enough" from God. So I alternated: in God's name, weeding my soul all the more violently or demanding of God, "Where is that blessed assurance everyone else sings about?" and quitting when it yet again did not come.

Until, one frigid winter night, as I walked home from bible study.

It went through me like electricity, a jolt in my body: God does not demand I become perfect before God accepts me, but accepts me in order to perfect me. And immediately I knew that I would serve this God, and not the "Not good enough" god.

A few months later, there was this day? week? when it seemed like reality was burning bright from the inside out. It was spring by then, but it wasn't the sun shining on things, it was something shining out of everything. I walked around in wonder and in this loving light and warmth.

I was in college, and as I passed through campus, a band was playing outside on the main quad, in the middle of the day. And I sat in the grass, in the sun, in the divine light, and in the music.

I remembered this when Living School guide, Katie Chiaramonte, asked us to "put a picture or symbol to our own felt sense of our mystical experiences." I responded, lightning and light.

Inner lightning. Light-from-within.

Can these be separated from the storm that came before? It's almost like the lightning was a strike from within the storm itself. And the light like that special quality of sunlight that comes only after a storm.

This is what "meander" means to me: no, the lightning/light and the storm cannot be separated. One makes way for the other. Prepares the way. There's no straight line. No path from light to light. The shortest path meanders through storm and calm, calm and storm.

Not that "everything happens for a reason." Randomness and chance are real. By definition, there is no reason or purpose to what is random. But maybe the saying expresses an intuition that the path of healing and love crosses some mighty deep and stormy waters. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus didn't send the storm. Jesus calmed the storm. God uses everything, for love. Lightning and light.

I took this photo above at DeSoto National Memorial Park in Bradenton, Florida in 2005.

It's thought that Hernando de Soto, a Spanish conquistador, and his soldiers, priests, craftspeople, farmers, and even families landed at this spot in 1539. De Soto called the land Espíritu Santo, Holy Spirit. In the name of Jesus and yet betraying Jesus, de Soto was "lancing every Indian encountered on both sides of the road" (source). Those native peoples were Apalachee, indigenous to what's now Florida.

DeSoto National Memorial Park is currently closed due to damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Bradenton and Manatee County are among the hardest hit areas.

"And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house..." (Acts 2:2, bible text appointed for Pentecost Sunday).

I lived for a year in Bradenton, while I served as "vicar" (or intern pastor) at Trinity Lutheran Church. On Pentecost Sunday 2005--the year after Hurricanes Charley, Francis, Jean, and Ivan hit Florida--I preached about the Holy Spirit coming like a hurricane. The wife of a pastor on staff got mad at me. She disagreed strongly. Maybe for good reason. Maybe not.

Lightning and light. Inner lightning. Light-from-within.

I remember Victor Frankl, who wrote, “What is to give light must endure burning.” I think of refiner's fire. When the refining is finished, all that will remain will be lightning and light.

In a word, love.