A Radiance Within

"God does not die on the day we cease to believe in a personal deity. But we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance of wonder renewed daily, the source of which is beyond all reason." (Dag Hammarskjold, UN Secretary General 1953-1961 and Nobel Peace Prize recipient)

I love it when people say things that make my thinking stop in its tracks. Dag Hammarskjold had that ability. It's like the first crocus in the Spring. Once you see it, you can't help yourself. You just have to stop for a moment and take it in. Its tiny radiance doesn't just fill you with a sense of joy. It points to something far bigger than itself. It heralds Spring!  

The radiance that Hammarskjold says can be present within each of us isn't based on a particular set of beliefs about God--be they Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Christian or whatever. These are all human constructs created in an attempt to understand something far beyond all reason--that which we have named "God." Our beliefs have their place, yes, but they are not the source of our radiance.

Rather, the radiance within comes from beyond us and from beyond anything we can do. Through a staid commitment to pray and/or meditate, or in other words, to wonder, to ponder, to stop and take in both the physical world around us and the spiritual world within us, we become exposed to this Radiance. And we glow.