Hope

The first rays of sun die into heavy morning; a tired morning; a morning devoid of great expectations. Blank faces and lethargic bodies mill onto the platform as the trains come and go in a blurring whirlwind of noise and dull metal. I have joined the ranks of part-time nine-to-fives and I make the most of it. Short-lived. Smiling at others for several moments in my fresh-faced naivete, I feel like a fool when my attempts at beauty are met with vacuous stares that reach beyond me though they look at me, through me. The Train comes.

Ours is a holocaust of a different kind. Hitler is known for packing precious humanity onto cattle cars and sending them to their deaths. Cramming onto the train full of distracted, aching, numb souls, the semblance between genocide and mass soul-death at the luminous hands of mobile media sinks into my stomach like a steel ball. Why won't anyone smile back? Please, somebody. Smile back.

Drowning.

Swaying.

Drowning.

Choking on the apathy.

Light.

I remember light. I was reading Isaiah today, and now I understand something a little better: my role in this. 60, verse 2. "For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you." I see this darkness on the platform, on the train, in the vague stares of the crowd, even in my job, where I had hoped to find hope.

No, not here.

Jesus is my hope, and this is yet another heavy reminder that only in Him is light. And now in me. The Lord has arisen upon me. Now, Oh Lord, let your glory be seen upon me. This world; this train needs glory and beauty. Make it yours.

I am not drowning anymore. Jesus pulls me into light and I become it. I am not used to daily blankness, cattlecars, or the numbing monotony in between, but sweetly, I am not used to Jesus either, in a way that surprises me into a fuller relationship with Him over and over again.

Being light in a thick darkness is extremely difficult. There is no easy way to be so, and yet in Christ, it is impossible to be blotted out by the charcoal smears of apathy either.

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden."