Enlightenment During the Season of Light

(The Demand of Blessing)

Enlightenment is an awareness of walking in the darkness and having the path before you flooded with light – either gradually or suddenly.  Either way, it is an “Aha!” experience.  As a journey, it is a continuous awakening.  Its reward is both blessing and curse.

I was raised in a fundamentalist religious belief system.  Its truth was infallible. It was a room with entry doors but none for exit.  Its darkness was claimed as light.  Its purpose was to enthrall the devotion of all who came within its influence.  My family was raised in its confines.  I, alone, escaped into light.

This escape was not through a crack in the religious belief system. The system remained as it always had been.  It was through a crack in my mind that light appeared.  The crack was the appearance of a new idea that demanded an application to my beliefs.  As I allowed the application to grow so did the awareness of my ignorance.  Eventually this light rejected the entirety of my belief system.  In its place was erected a new posture toward truth – a thirsty openness. New beliefs were engaged and a new lifestyle was born.

Here is what I have learned. There is no end to the blessings of enlightenment.  Openness to different views is its challenge.  Learning is its companion.  Growth is its invitation. Joy is its measure.

But I have also learned that enlightenment is not simply an enchanting skip down discovery lane.  It has its burdens. It accentuates an awareness of the curse of ignorance.  It highlights the choice of the multitudes to stay in the security of darkness.  It sharpens the loneliness of independent thinking.  It invites the isolation of arrogance.  It prompts despair.  And, in its most oppressive form, beckons toward suicide.

Thus, one must handle enlightenment with not only delight in the joy of its growth but with wariness toward its potential burdens. The joy must be embraced as a strength that both rejects the invitation of its burdens and elevates a sense of having been extraordinarily blessed. In so doing, enlightenment is transformed into a deep sense of obligation to find ways to flood the culture with light so others can share its joy. It is to accept a primal lesson of life: With profound blessing comes profound obligation. 

I look backward as I step forward into this so-called season of light and my heart sings both the blessings and obligations of liberation.

Robert

Robert T. Latham

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