Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman asked this question in the first line of her now-famous national elegy: “When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?” Her question, posed in the context of generations of inherited cultural trauma, perpetuated in the name of manifest destiny, is one that gives us pause.
“Where can we find light?”
Here in the fourth week of Lent, with the Gospel of John’s judicial rhetoric ringing in our ears, a man born blind faces his accusers and gives his authentic defense about how Jesus, a supposed sinner, could have healed him. The blind man’s response: “If he (Jesus) is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind, but now I see” (John 9:25). Jesus, his healer, also appears to be on trial for his “crime” of healing on a Sabbath. His own disciples assume that the man born blind acquired his blindness either through his own sin, or the inherited sin from his parents. Jesus’ response is enlightening: “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world” (John 9:3–5).
What appears to be so is not always what we see on the surface. What we see is sometimes confusing, especially when assumptions cloud our perception. Cloaked in our own preconceived certitudes, what we might see as sinful, or impossible, or out of order, might actually be miraculous, infinitely co-creative, and dynamic, organic and life-giving. Spittle and mud—and the cleansing water of purpose and right intention—might be just the combination needed for new life to emerge and for the Light to enter our myopic vision. Will we welcome the Light when it comes? Or will we insist that the Light is nefarious because it challenges the idea that our own claims, or our deeply-entrenched world-views are sacrosanct?
Then Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains” (John 9:39–41).
Careful. If we think we can see clearly, we might be missing something on the edges, in our periphery, or perhaps right in front of our nose. Better listen to the little ones, who tend to see past the appearance, to the obvious. “The Emperor has no clothes!”
Remaining in our sinfulness is a matter of what we can’t let go, our “Precious” ring (ala Tolkien’s Gollum), our pretense of invulnerability. It is what we refuse to see, our intransigence, that is actually hurting the whole. It is an attempt at concealment of our deeper questions, our confusions, our shame, our brokenness, or in other words, our ontological poverty, our humanity.
The antidote? Let the Light shine! Let it shine on all the embarrassment, the confusion, the littleness. Let it shatter the darkness that wants to conceal our humanity. Bring our vulnerability, our brokenness, our sinfulness out into the light of day. Only then can we be able to do the work necessary to turn the soil, to compost, to begin again, to be born anew. It takes just the tiniest opening to let our courage surge, to let go of our blindness, and to shine. We can see the Light, if only we’re brave enough to be it.
“When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”—Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb,” Presidential Inaugural, January 20, 2021
(https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/20/amanda-gorman-poem-biden-inauguration-transcript)
—Laura A. Weber, Ph.D., Prairiewoods associate director and retreats coordinator