The first book I ever remember becoming completely and totally engrossed in was The Boxcar Children. I was in third grade and I could not get enough of this book about four runaway children who start living in a boxcar. I wanted to live in a boxcar. The children, who found plates and cups and eating utensils at the garbage dump, made trash cool.
I read it and reread it and read it again.
Third grade was also the year I started wearing glasses.
Sometimes, whether it was The Boxcar Children or some other book, I would become so engrossed, I would lose all track of time and my mom or dad would find me in the living room or in my bedroom reading in the dark.
And then one of them would say, “Why are you sitting here in the dark?” or “Why don’t you turn the light on?”
I was so absorbed in my reading I didn’t even know that day had turned into night.
But when they turned on the light, something amazing happened. My eyes watered and then relaxed. Suddenly everything was clearer and easier and far more enjoyable.
These days I know better. I read with the light on. But in other ways throughout my life, I have struggled, I think as we all struggle, with living in the dark.
This metaphorical darkness is so cunning because we’re so caught up in our lives, our jobs, our dramas that gang up and overwhelm us that we don’t even know that it’s dark out. All we know is that we feel lost, unsatisfied, sad, underused, overused. We may feel lonely even when we have friends. We feel unwanted and unneeded. We’re angry and afraid, and we have no idea why.
We wander aimlessly through life, trying desperately to find meaning when all we really need is for someone to turn the light on.
Since I’ve been going to church, people have noticed a difference in me and they ask me what triggered the change, what specifically happened to cause me to feel so much joy, so much excitement for life? They want to know what happened at this church that had not happened at others.
And well … here’s my answer:
When I walked into this church, God turned on the light for me.
The change that people see in me, it’s nothing I’ve done. It’s something that has been done for me, by God, through this church and the people in this church.
Now the light is on and I can see.
And the world is brighter, more beautiful, and all at once more human and more divine.
All my life … I had no idea … really.
But just like the song says … now I see.
