Clipă de Lumină

Hey everyone!  Most of you probably have already seen my other blog (bemis.blogsome.com) and have seen most of this entry, but this is the complete English/Romanian explanation for the title.

I have a book of meditations written by Frederick Buechner–someone whom I respect very much–and his entry for September 1 (my birthday!) is fabulous.  Here’s the complete entry:

“It is a moment of light surrounded on all sides by darkness and oblivion.  In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another just like it and there will never be another just like it again.  It is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth.  It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death.  If you were aware of how precious it is, you could hardly live through it.  Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.

“‘This is the day which the Lord has made,’ says the 118th Psalm.  ‘Let us rejoice and be glad in it.’  Or weep and be sad in it for that matter.  The point is to see it for what it is because it will be gone before you know it.  If you waste it, it may be the moment you’ve been waiting for always that you’re missing.

“All other days have either disappeared into darkness and oblivion or not yet emerged from them.  Today is the only day there is”
(Listening to Your Life, pg. 234).

I think it’s appropriate.  I also hope that a moment of light is what my life is in this world–a light shining in the darkness for a moment in time.  And I pray that my light (the light of the one I love shining through me) challenges other lights to shine brighter still.

“Clipă de Lumină” means “Moment of Light” in Romanian, but it also means more than that.  “Clipă” is a moment, but it’s also an instant.  From this word come the Romanian words for twinkle and blink.  This moment of light is just for an instant, a twinkling that is gone in the blink of an eye.  Blink at the wrong time and you miss it entirely.  This doesn’t sound terribly encouraging, but if God is the one guiding even our blinking, then we won’t miss the light.  And again, life is like an instant, just a twinkle in God’s eye.  But I’d rather be a twinkle in the eye of God, than a star on earth.

~ by bemis on 4 October 2006.