Pause In Lent #4 - Being The Light

Yesterday morning I was sitting in bed enjoying the day's first cup of tea [thanks Bob] when I looked across to the black trousers hanging over the chair. 

There was a line of bright light. I described it as an oval, Bob said it was a rectangle with rounded ends. In fact it was a whole line of overlapping circles [think Audi logo] 

It was created by the sunlight shining through the slit in the curtains. But that slit isn't a perfectly rounded shape. How does that happen? In the 4th Century BC, Aristotle asked how it was that light passing through quadrilateral holes, like woven fabric, produced circles not rectangles. 

As a child I looked at the light streaming through the leaves on the trees and asked my Dad the same question. Why can I see lots of little circles? Dad explained that these were solar images, and it was all about the way the light creates a diffraction pattern. Each little circle is an image of the sun. He told me about pinhole cameras, and why we can safely observe an eclipse by holding one piece of card with a tiny hole in the middle and looking at the image of the sun produced on the second card below it. [full explanation here] 

As I looked at the bright light yesterday, I remembered my early physics lessons from Dad, and then thought about my responsibility as a Christian to be the light in this dark world. My life should shine for Jesus. There are many times when I am not a good reflection of God's image. But that doesn't mean I should give up.[And I  realise how much brighter the light when I am alongside my church family, and we shine together] Matthew 5:16 says Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven

May His beauty rest upon me, as I seek to make Him known

So that all may look to JESUS, seeing him alone.