Light and Dark : Words and Actions

The other night I couldn’t sleep and so went through to the living Room and picked up the "Telecomando"

(I kid you not - that is the word for "remote" in Portuguese - what a colourful language!!)

There was a documentary on Bob Dylan on the local RTP2 TV channel. English programmes are few and far between but when they're on, they’re often useful for keeping an eye on the Portuguese subtitles and figuring out how idiomatic English expressions are carried over into Portuguese. That aside, I found myself fascinated by an interview with a regal looking silver haired Joan Baez. She expressed her disappointment that despite his being more or less the prophet of the whole ‘60’s Protest movement in the USA, Bob Dylan never really aligned himself with that movement, never marched out side by side for civil rights or against the war or wanted that his poetry or music be politicised. It was something she could never really come to terms with. Words and actions for her belonged together.

Now, whether or not one thinks that Dylans poetry and music should stand on its own, for ourselves the reality is that our words must relate to our actions. That’s an absolute. Already, in our first few weeks in Lisbon, in the little bit of relationship building we have been doing, we are aware that our words are being weighed and our lives watched. For many people around us, we may be the only example of true Christian living demonstrated in front of them. We become, as it were, the image of the invisible God. Now that might seem to be a somewhat pompous statement - a bit of verbal overkill. However, in a very real sense that is God’s intention when he places Christians in neighbourhoods and communities – it's his desire that we become THE visible body of Christ in a dark place.


The light in Lisbon is startling. We've had only one overcast wet day the whole of October (unusual weather for the time of year, people say) and, when the sun shines, there's an amazing luminosity about the place. Probably something to do with the whitewashed walls or the shine of the wonderfully patterned cobbled streets and the reflections from the river. But it brings a rich colour to the city. Yet, like any other large urbal sprawl, there are patches of darkness. Many places where the kingdom of light does not reign. It is the job of Christians to bring light into dark places

that we may declare the praises of him who called US out of darkness

into HIS WONDERFUL LIGHT" (1 peter 2:9)