Light on the Page

Light of Heaven

The ‘difficulty of belief’ surrounds the festivals at this time of year. No matter what religion you belong to, no matter whether you are a humanist or an atheist or something else, it’s still possible or even necessary to make your children happy with gifts at the mid-wintertide and to enjoy the mood of warmth and love. But to believe in a legend from two thousand years ago or some other tale from antiquity? Isn’t this on a par with believing in the fairytales you tell your children?

But let’s take another situation. Let’s just suppose that there is a particularly beautiful, pure and loving soul – a soul coming straight from God – approaching the earth, stepping into the stream of time in a way that can never be repeated. And let’s suppose that this soul – he or she – is experiencing doubts, fears, problems of belief – feeling both the light of heaven and the greed of hell at his or her shoulder, seeing the temptation of time as well as the desire to avoid it, and thinking, ‘Who will be with me, who will stand by my side, who will take my hand?’ Would you not want to be the one to reach out – to teach and guide and support?

And let’s go one step further. Suppose that this particularly beautiful soul – emerging from purity and love – is in fact the higher part of your own being. Wouldn’t it be even more right to take its – his or her – hand? To embrace its doubts and fears as well as your own, more habitual ones?

‘Who will be with me, who will stand by my side, who will take my hand?’ Is anything else required for belief? Do you have to belong to any particular religion or espouse any special philosophy to do this? I don’t think so. Just to be willing to enter into that stream of time once, to acknowledge the light of heaven and the fire of hell, the dangers of time. The difficulty of belief is just a difficulty of being. Embrace your own doubts, meet them with willingness, and you will find the hand reaching over from the other side.

Light of Heaven

The light of heaven, the greed of hell

are ready at my shoulder should I jump

into the stream that cannot hold me twice.

That stream is time, never the same though I

drip from it and shake seconds into pools.

Its hours and minutes are palaces for some -

if they could they would never leave but hold

its sounds to their ear like mother-of-pearl.

And some would leave before the first sun’s set,

before their feet have marked the morning dew.

And am I made enough, complete and pearled,

to stand against the current or let it flow

around me? Who will stand with me? Will you

show me the light of heaven, fire of hell?

Best wishes, today,

Landar

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