COMING CLOSE
TO THE LIGHT
It could be seen as an excessively pessimistic observation, but it’s certain that people are capable of living many years without having any idea of what is happening within themselves. We can keep living day after day without wanting to see what is it that truly moves our lives and who it is that really makes decisions within ourselves.
It’s not stupidity or lack of intelligence. What’s happens is that in a more or less conscious way we intuit that seeing ourselves more lucidly obligates us to change. Once again it seems that some words of Jesus are fulfilled in us: «Everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, to prevent his actions from being shown up». We’re afraid to seeing ourselves just as we are. We feel bad when the light penetrates our life. We prefer continuing on blind, day after day feeding our deceptions and illusions.
What’s most serious is that the moment comes when though blind, we believe we see everything clearly and realistically. How easy it is then to live without knowing ourselves or ever asking ourselves: «Who am I?». It’s easy to naively believe that I’m that superficial image that I have of myself, made up of memories, experiences, fears and desires.
How easy it also is to believe that reality is exactly how I see it, without being conscious that the outer world that I see is for the most part a reflection of the inner world that I live and of the desires and interests that I foster. How easy it also is to get used to dealing not with real people, but with the image or labels that I’ve fabricated for myself of them.
That great writer Hermann Hesse, in his small book My Credo, full of wisdom, wrote: «The man that I contemplate with fear, hope, greed, propositions, demands, isn’t a man, he’s only a cloudy reflection of my will».
Probably, when we want to transform our lives by directing our steps in more noble paths, what’s most decisive isn’t the effort to change. What’s first is opening our eyes, asking myself what I go about seeking in my life, being more conscious of the interests that move my existence, discovering the ultimate motive of my daily living.
We can take a moment to answer this question: Why do I flee myself and God so much? Why in short do I prefer living deceived without seeking the light? We need to listen to Jesus’ words: «Everybody who does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may plainly appear as done in God».
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
