“Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.” As I sit down to write this meditation, the country is reeling from two more mass shootings, more people dead or injured at the hands of those who seem to think that violence is the answer to what ails them, and us. Darkness once again settles over us, and fear grows stronger in the air around us. Just yesterday, my housekeeper was bemoaning her fear of going to Walmart, how the day before she had chosen to go to a different grocery store even though Walmart was closer to her home. God doesn’t want us to live like that.

The Holy One desires that we be aware of the light of Love enfolding us in peace here and now, despite the circumstances which may come our way, that we recognize, as John the Epistler has pointed out, God’s “perfect love casts out fear.”(I Jn.4:18a) When God faces us, and the Beloved is ever and always facing each of us and all of us, the light of God’s countenance shines in and through us that we may incarnate divine Love and holy Presence here and now. That is God’s transforming work in us, bringing us into the completion of the imago dei we were created to be.

Take time to sit for a few minutes, letting “The Light of God’s Countenance” surround you. With your eyes closed, feel the warmth of Divine Presence encompassing you right where you are. Let the Light overcome the perceived darkness in your world, trusting that:

God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year.

God is working his purpose out, and the time is drawing near;

nearer and nearer draws the time, that time that shall surely be,

when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

Arthur Campbell Ainger