I Saw the Light

Nearly thirty years ago I had an experience that, while seemingly insignificant, sparked a question. I flipped the light switch to my apartment in Japan and……… the light didn’t come on. As a missionary, I was given one day a week to do write letters, do laundry, clean the apartment, do grocery shopping and get out to see the sights of Japan. Given that my interest was in seeing the sights of Japan, I rushed through the laundry and the cleaning and the shopping. Week after week after week I forgot to buy a light bulb to replace the one that had gone out two months prior. I didn’t concern myself with it too much because I really only used the room to sleep in and I like it dark when I sleep. One day though, while making my way down an aisle in the grocery store, I glanced to my left and saw a light bulb. I bought the bulb and as soon as I got home, I put it in. I regretted what I had done the instant I flipped the switch. I saw things that no God-fearing missionary should see: dust, lint, articles of clothing, scraps of food and various other items that had gone missing. They were all there before my weary eyes. I knew there were a few things out of order, but with the light on, the filth that I had been living in asaulted my optics without impunity. I wanted to flip the switch off and go back to my blissful state of ignorance. But I had seen what I had seen and now I had to do something about it.

Was there a lesson in this? Out of the rubble of my room arose this metaphor: If light is knowledge, then the more knowledge I gain, the clearer my views and greater clarity of thought brings better decisions and improved circumstances. Sometimes the light reveals things that make me uncomfortable. Ignorance is not bliss. It is just the denial that I am living in intellectual, emotional and spiritual squalor.