The last couple months I've been reading through the Gospels using The Message paraphrase by Eugene Peterson. Reading through the eleventh chapter of Luke, here's what caught my attention: "Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills with light."
Maybe as a child, like me, you learned and sang the song, "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine," based on other translations of this verse. The light in me for others. Yes to this; a wonderful thing to be taught early in life. But I appreciate this additional twist that Peterson gives, this emphasis on opening outward, "living wide-eyed in wonder and belief," not in the sense of responsibility but in the joyful sense of becoming filled with light.
“Thou takest the pen – and the lines dance. Thou takest the flute – and the notes shimmer.
Thou takest the brush – and the colors sing. So all things have meaning and beauty in that space beyond where Thou art.
How, then, can I hold anything back from Thee.”
— Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings
_