Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Should We Be Reflectors?


Ok, here goes nothing. You have often heard space described as dark. You look into the night sky and see millions of little white dots surrounded by endless black. It would seem that most of space is empty. Stars and planets are millions of miles apart and the rest of space is empty, right? I disagree. Space if full of light. If you were to put a heavenly body (by this I mean anything that has mass and is floating in space) into space, it would be illuminated. You would be able to see it, would you not? Isn't that what the moon is? The moon does not produce light, it is simply an entity in space. We see it very brightly, however, because light is reflecting off of it. Well, in order for light to be reflecting off of the moon, logic and reason would tell us that the light was there before, it just wasn't reflecting off of anything and, thus, we couldn't see it.

The same logic would apply to the earth and all the other planets. Why can we see Mars from earth? Mars does not produce light. Why could the astronauts take a picture of the earth from space? The earth does not produce light. Let's say for a moment that the earth were 4 million miles further away from the sun, would it still be visible from a space shuttle? Of course it would! Regardless of where we put the earth, light from the sun is still going to reflect off it and make it "visible".


So, space is full of light, but that light is imperceptible unless it is reflecting off something. Is that true? I believe so. On earth, everything we see is only light reflected off an object with mass. Even the sky is light reflecting off our atmosphere. Light is everywhere, but cannot be perceived without objects to reflect off of.

I believe this has a gospel parallel. We often hear Christ referred to as the Light of the World. I think Christ's love is an extension of this light analogy. As we just discussed, light is everywhere. It fills all of space. Light, however, is imperceptible without reflectors. Likewise, Christ's love is manifested through His faithful followers. We are the "reflectors" that make the Light perceptible to those who see the world as a dark void.

I'd love to hear thoughts, rebuttals, and/or other parallels about this thought. What do you think?


2 comments:

  1. I loved discussing this with you and Dad last night. It's quite a shift in thinking for me, but one that seems so right and true. It brought to mind the scripture about seeing His image in our countenance (Alma, I think). We are able to see that image when our life is reflecting His will. I will never look at a starry sky the same.

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  2. Perfect symbolism of what people should see when they look at us,Christ.We simply mirror the light of Christ and let other people know Christ by being him,through example :)i like that Dave

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