Before you begin
What Kind of Light
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” Then He said it to those who follow Him: “You are the light of the world.”
Your words are waiting. They are in the first box of the next part.
The light is His. A man carries it; he does not make it. “…at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” (John 8:12 · Matthew 5:14 · Ephesians 5:8) So the question in this poem is not whether you shine, or how brightly. It is what His light looks like by the time it reaches the people near you.
This poem is nearly all questions. Nobody here will grade your light. You will look at it, and then you will turn to one person and ask what it offers them. Where the question goes after that is yours to decide. Read the poem below first. Then write your own. Each line starts for you. Under most boxes is a row of words. Tap one, or write your own. Save keeps your place.
Or write it by hand. Print the worksheet — the poem, the same nine lines on paper, and The Word for It beside them. Fill it in over a week at the kitchen table if you like, then type it in here when it is finished.
A Hebrew word: ohr
In Hebrew, light is ohr (אוֹר), spelled with the letter aleph. Skin is also ohr (עוֹר), spelled with the letter ayin. The two words sound alike.
After the fall, Genesis says God made Adam and Eve “garments of skin” (Genesis 3:21). The rabbis record that in Rabbi Meir’s Torah scroll the word was written with an aleph: garments of light. From that one letter came an old teaching. Man was first clothed in light, and what he wears now is skin. One sage said those first garments were “as smooth as a fingernail”. That is one reason given for an old custom: at the close of the Sabbath, a Jew holds his fingernails up to the candle and watches the light come through.
So the question in this poem is an old one. How much light gets through the skin?
I. Read it first
Read it slowly, out loud if you can. Notice which lights stop you. You will write nine lines of your own after it, and every light in this poem will be there for you to pick up.
What Kind of Light Am I?
John Sherrod
Am I the fireflies at our first home,
among the pecan trees, the pine forest and the open fields,
swarms of light, dancing,
and we ran to them?
Am I a light on a hill, steady and true,
easy to see, easy to walk toward?
What kind of light am I?
Am I the bulb above the table in our childhood home,
flickering over my brothers, my mom, my dad,
the fight simmering, waiting for ignition,
then the plates rattling, the pictures falling,
the silence after, and the repairs?
To my wife and my children, am I the desk light in the house we built,
that held me those long hours the way a drink holds another man?
Did you wait for a while,
then accept my loss to this world of dimmer lights?
Am I a candle in the dark room,
desire, dancing so slightly,
a lost love, distant and fleeting?
Am I sunlight on a clear day,
showing every edge and the shadow behind it?
Or moonlight, enough to walk by
and not enough to be sure?
What kind of light am I?
Am I hiding my light
in the room where addiction held the night,
until the sunlight came with the justice of the day,
a reckoning of sorts?
Am I the red light in the window,
promising what it cannot give?
A friend called me into the space they said was mine,
welcoming, filled with goodness and wanting.
Why did I hear it and want to flee?
Did my body retreat from the light of hope
until grace gathered me at a moment of surrender?
Am I a rainbow, a covenant blessing and a warning?
The promise that I will not destroy you today,
that claims the faithfulness of a family
to rebuild the generations ahead?
Am I the light that is ending,
the last red coal of the fire,
still warm for the easy few in the circle,
the ones we chose today?
What is my light offering you?
Do you see it once, then darkness again,
left alone in the pit, behind the bars, in the dirt and the mud?
Is it so unforgiving that the dark is a comfort?
Is it a beacon, so the details of the path are true?
Is it shining in your eyes, so that you cover and hide?
Or does it rest on one place,
leaving shadow to explore and shade to relish?
To my family from story work:
when I told you my story, the truth of who I was,
you set a lamp beside me to find the light in my story,
you held me with your eyes and stayed in the moment,
reassuring and true.
What kind of light are you?
Your poem so far
Your questions, written.
Read it out loud once. Then save it, so it is waiting on your page.
Your poem
Where does this question go?
It is written. What happens next is yours to decide. Choose one. You can choose again later.
What came back
If this is about someone who harmed you, the lament was built for that. And it goes better with someone beside you.
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