In Him was life, and that life was the light of men

In him was LIFE
Another of the great words, the great themes of this Gospel. LIFE for our lifelessness, our hopelessness, our inner deadness. LIFE, the great antidote for the depression that is inevitable when we lose sight of the source of life.

And that life was the LIGHT of men.
Light, like God himself, is one of the simple, humble, unregarded, taken for granted things.
Light like God is many things
SAFETY
And yet from earliest childhood we know that in it lies our safety. In cities, when there is street lighting, crime falls. When there is a city wide power failure, crime soars. At night, in the darkness, the world over, crime increases exponentially--murder, rape, muggings, burglaries. We knows these things from earliest childhood if we are female. There are few places in the world in which a woman can walk completely safely alone after dark. Certainly not Oxford, England.

IN THE BEGINNING

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

I grew up in India where religious chants spilled into the streets, early into the morning with the muezzins holler, Allah oh Akbar...There is no God, but God, and Muhammed is his prophet, and from merry dhabas and corner shops selling cloth, the rhythm of bhajans. Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Hare, Hare, Hare.
The rhythms do thud in your pulses, and repeated, lull and calm the mind.

How much more this majestic, absolute declaration. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It calms and stabilizes my mind, even before I ponder its meaning.

THE WORD. Words. Communication. Thought. Aliveness. As God touches, and invades our lives, one thing that happens is that words flow. The mind comes fully alive. It begins to sing.