::Wayfarer’s Log 19.0080960
Got Light?
This afternoon I went to make a key.
That was the entire agenda.
No sermon. No transmission. No metaphysical assignment. Just the ordinary human task of duplicating the last remaining house key before Camille leaves town.
So, under the predictable Arizona sun, I walked into Ace Hardware.
Behind the counter stood a man in a red shirt with his head slightly bowed. Older. Quiet. The posture of someone who has spent a lifetime doing competent, uncelebrated things.
“Hi,” I said brightly. “Can you make a key?”
He lifted his head slowly…but not all the way.
“Mm-hmm.”, he said, even more slowly.
I handed him the key. Began to remove it from the ring.
“You don’t even have to take it off,” he said, taking his time, “I got it.”
In sharp contrast to his languid manner of speaking, he retrieved my key, still on the ring, stepped immediately to the key machine.
Forty-five seconds later, he turned around with a perfectly cut duplicate. It was astonishingly fast.
I looked at the key.
As I raised my head, I noted his name on the Ace hardware name tag: Fred.
Then I looked directly at him and made gentle, brief eye contact.
“This is a magnificent job of key making. Thank you so much, Fred.” I said this in total sincerity.
That was it.
His face lit up like someone had switched on an internal porch light.
Nothing mystical occurred. No music swelled. No aura flared. Just a human being being seen in the dignity of his craft.
And yet the atmosphere brightened.
Here is what struck me later:
Recognition can be ignition.
Light duplicates itself.
I went in to duplicate a key.
I left having duplicated light.
The Kingdom does not require spectacle. It seems to prefer hardware stores.
Sometimes holiness masquerades as a man in a red shirt lighting up because someone named his artistry.
On the way out of the store, an image appeared in my mind like a bumper sticker:
A simple cartoon head peeking over the horizon.
Tiny cheerful eyes.
A bright gold star in the center of the forehead, sending sparks outward.
The caption reads:
Got Light?
Field conclusion:
Light is not transmitted by force.
It is recognized into duplication.
Less proving. More glowing.
End of log. ::