To Be a Mirror

To Be a Mirror

By John W. Vander Velden

 

During my school years I loved physical science.  Perhaps I have always been fascinated with how things work…and science tries to explain that.  I had a wonderful science teacher in 8^th grade.  He pushed me.  Some might not appreciate a teacher that expected a bit more, but I thrived.

It was in his class that I gave one of my first science reports.  My subject, light, was broad and required much work to prepare.  But part of that report dealt with light’s reflection.  If light could not be reflected we would not be able to see.  For the light that comes to our eyes, revealing landscapes, flowers, beautiful face of my beloved, and nearly everything else we see, is reflected.

But when we think of reflecting light we think of shinny surfaces, we think of mirrors.  There are mirrors that make things appear larger, concave mirrors.  There are mirrors that make things smaller, like that odd mirror on the right side of our automobile, convex mirrors.  And there are those funhouse panes that are a blend of both convex and concave that shift and change our appearance.  But by and large most of our mirrors, be they in our bathroom or perched upon our dresser, are flat reflective glass that gives the most accurate, though reversed, view.

But mirrors do more for me than just reveal the spot I missed while shaving.  They can be used to see around corners.  They can make a space appear larger.  They can focus light into a dark corner.  You see mirrors bounce light, and that’s impressive.

It seems to me there are two types of “things”, those that capture and those that reflect.  And that distinction is not limited to light.  So what has this to do with us…you and me?  I believe that we have control over which of those two things we are at any given moment.  We can absorb…take everything good and bad inside, to capture, to hold, to possess.  Or we can chose to me more like a mirror, to understand that the good things we have been given, comes from outside ourselves. To see that we have been showered by good and even bad, but in ways beyond our control.  It is for us to “deal with it”, and the mirror-like deal with it differently than the absorber.

I see love as the light that fills the universe.  There is enough love to go around.  Yet there are those that feel the need to hoard love’s light, to be the black velvet drop cloth grasping and holding every ray of love that dares to come near.  Desperate, they fear to be shortchanged.  The world around them is colder as the murkiness of a space that surrounds a Black Hole.  But those that reflect God’s love light, shine sparkling bright, their love, reflected, warm others nearby.

It is my hope that I, at least most of the time, am a reflector.  And my wish for you…is to be a mirror.            (505 Words)