“I am the Light of the World”
Radiance
through whom we get glimpses of the invisible,
hear our prayers:
Issue something like a recycled papal bull,
Lumen Gentium.
Bathe our consciousness in starbursts of hope;
flood our spirits with rays of reassurance;
and somehow, say to our shadowed, now constricted, world:
“Fear not I am with you, O be not afraid.
Your God is at hand who will still give you aid.”
Sing something hymnal like that;
sing like embers in a smoldering, smoky fire.
Glow like a candle in a nighttime window,
like those ones we saw on the news
flickering, dancing on balconies, sills, in the doorways of huts
in the streets and alleys of India.
Bring your brightness to bear on hospital rooms, research labs,
shutdown stores, people confined,
grieving hearts and frightened souls.
Pace yourself like a marathon runner
racing electric slowly, intentionally around the earth.
With each footfall, each breath,
take on our suffering once more,
and carry it.
Let us be smitten, enraptured, readied for renewal,
and pardoned for all failings
as once again you cry out loud amidst the darkness
and take release,
and every wave and particle of you is beamed up into God.
The Hindus have a chant, a cry for that too:
“Aroot Perum Johti” —
(“I invoke divine light”).
Come, Holy Jesus, Christ on the cross,
glow and burn within us
and turn us into such a prayer