The assignment of this Sunday's lectionary text - St. John’s renowned allusion to light - always seems to hit those of us in the Western Hemisphere at a time of year when there could hardly be much less of it: "The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.“ (John 1)

And to what kind of light might John be referring? we Michiganders wonder-
For we are the inheritors of a variety of lights - Is it the gunmetal-gray light of winter-that cloud-filtered, ashen light, as monotonous as Seattle’s, that robs us of depth and makes everything look so flat?

Is it the muggy light of Spring, the one that morphs the puddles into haze rising from the earth - producing a light that glows more than shines?

Is it the glaring, frolic-y, mid-summer light the tourists come for-an emerald green light shimmering off of 13-thousand lakes, seen more for what it reflects than anything else?

Or is it the golden light of October that’s as crisp it is warm-an antique light of “unearned nostalgia” (Don Waldie)?

Here in Michigan, a place where the first European explorers wrote nasty letters back home using phrases like, ‘uninhabitable,’ ‘too swampy’ and ‘most unsuitable for professional football,’ we revel in the varieties of light our unique blend of precipitation and seasonal diversity bring us. For the light that we see, and the light Jesus brings is as multi-faceted as it is delicious-
-as inspiring as it is wondrous.

Ponder for a moment the various ways this light has come into your life.