Live in the Light

God is love.  God is not an object.  For those of us interested in showing love to God, the question arises... how do you love a non-object?  In part, by realizing it's not so much that we love God, but rather that by God, so we love.

Sometimes we refer to God as light.  How do you worship light?  You cannot locate it anyone place.  It is all around us.  It is not so much that we worship the light in one observable place, but rather by the light we observe everything around us.  In particular, it helps us see others around us.  

I hesitate to use Quincy as an example for fear that I'm over-eulogizing, but I think it's accurate to say she learned well how to "see" others.  The first Facebook message I opened up after Quincy's death was from a high school friend of Q's that I had not talked to in 5 or 6 years.  Her friend inaugurated a theme we heard again and again over those first few weeks when she said, "Quincy was someone who listened to me no matter what.  Although I made some bad choices, she never judged me.  She was always my friend."     

I won't relay all the messages we heard, but one of my very favorites was from an acquaintance who caught up with me one day and genuinely gushed, "There are so many good and holy stories about Quincy.  It's like we're watching a kind of sainthood being conferred upon her right in front of our eyes."  This is, of course, in no way meant to diminish the value that my brothers and sisters in the Catholic church place on sainthood.  Many who have done greater works than Quincy have never received official sainthood status.  But, then again, knowing how God does all of his best work in secret... it is probably true.  (Furthermore, the NT makes it clear we are all saints, but not based on our merit.  It's all based on His merit.)  Quincy learned how to "see" people. 

This "seeing people" though... it's not anything Quincy originated.  It all stemmed from how she saw her Savior seeing her.  The Savior saw her in the light of God.  She knew it.  She knew it because He saw everyone this way.  Why are the Gospel stories replete with so many different types of people, in particular, so many types of "unworthy" people being drawn to Jesus?  Why the lepers, the foreigners, the women, the blind, the sick, the poor, the hated, the outcast...?  Because Jesus didn't objectify His love.  He didn't go to the temple and express love to God, then leave and go about His way.  Rather, by LOVE He saw others.  He didn't just worship the light, but rather by the light He lived.  He lived in the LIGHT, and it touched everything He saw.  

He lived in the LIGHT, and it touched everything He saw.