God called us out of Darkness

I have thought for a very long time about exactly what purpose I had in creating this "blog." I have not been one who tends to openly record my thoughts for people to see at the ready--my notes on Facebook are walled up behind privacy barriers. Yet, here this empty space has remained, for almost a year by my count, and now I have finally decided upon what it should be utilized towards. I was never quite sure that anything I had to say would ever be of enough merit to warrant anyone else reading my words, but I love to write and I have decided that I shall share and just listen to what people are saying.

For this premiere post, I thought I would keep it short and sweet, and perhaps explain why exactly I decided to name this "lux ex tenebris invictus." As you may have realized, that ancient Latin phrase translates as, "light triumphs out of [the] darkness." Surprisingly, it found it's way to me decorating the front of a Trans-Siberian Orchestra t-shirt (shown above) and I had my ancient history professor translate it, since I knew no Classical Latin at the time. Upon learning what is meant, I thought how incredibly amazing that such a simple phrase is and the power it possesses. Even if you study the image for but a few heartbeats you can see everything innate within the statue, everything that it is trying to convey. Lions are powerful and strong, hunters on the savannah, family-centered creatures, fiercely loyal, incredibly gentle, but at the same time incredibly dangerous. And just look at how the lion has been situated--he is triumphing out of the darkness, surrounded in light that reflects from the moon, snow, even piercing blue eyes (however unnatural). 


I would then, in light of all of this, in light of the most simple of triumphs, that light can be seen in the darkness, propose this challenge: What holds us back from such a life? God has called us up out of darkness, we are not bound by the shackles of Hell, so why do we live like they still are bound to us? I know that I have struggled with this for so long, sometimes everyday for months at a time, especially the last two years. I am not immune to conceding to the black, wilting in the empty, all I am asking, is that lady to lady, man to man, and across lines, we embrace the fact that together we can be this lion, proudly atop his perch, his achievement etched in stone. We can achieve invictus.