Flaming

I tend to be an early morning person. I have a hard time sleeping in even if I try. My mother says that she would have to fight tooth and nail to wake up my brothers for school, but I would often already be awake when she came in to wake me. I think I just do not sleep very deeply.

A scientific explanation is that it seems are bodies are largely created to be more active in the day and rest at night. We do not regularly use awesome raccoon night vision or dolphin echolocation to navigate our environment. We rely on the light to keep us from running into things or other things from running into us. Our bodies also intake necessary vitamin D from the sun’s rays.

In first Thessalonians, Paul wrote about being children of a different kind of light. He says that being in this light implies awareness and alertness. This light helps us to not be afraid of others knowing us and knowing others. It also involves being vigilant of our role in the world. 

Living in a pre-electricity world, I can imagine that Paul’s concept of night and day was probably much more potent to him and his readers in Thessalonica. Night may not have been considered a time when people necessarily I have read that people who lived in cities before electricity rarely ventured out of their homes after dark because doing so was not very safe.

As much as I find myself attracted to physical and metaphorical light, I know that I am not always living in this reality. My life rhythms get out of step and I find myself running and hiding in the dark. Usually it takes another person to notice it, someone says “Where have you been?” Then I know, then I see a flickering flame in a dark room. I hope you people in your life that may speak such truth to you, and I hope you feel the need to speak it to others.