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Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life
by Tom Kelley
With the exception of the bathroom, all of our downstairs rooms have ceiling fans in them with four separate light bulbs and covers on each. As a result there are shadows on the ceilings from the lights. None is more pronounced than the one in the living room where the vaulted ceiling is. The ceiling is nineteen feet from the floor. The fan hangs some eleven or twelve feet off the floor with a long conduit connecting it to the power fixture in the ceiling. For some odd reason I noticed the shadows above it the other evening.
If there is a light source and if there are objects between that light source and a surface there will be a shadow. That's a given. Simple as falling out of bed. (which I've done a few times, even in college) However, when there are four light sources there will be just as many shadows. They will intersect at some point which coincides with a point in the middle of the light sources. Kind of like what we used to see on the really old TV programs from back in the late fifties and into the sixties.
Bonanza was bad for having multiple shadows cast by the actors while they were supposedly standing outside where there is on ly one light source, the sun. Yet, there they are, recorded on celluloid, multiple shadows. Just like on my ceiling. The shadows are kind of fuzzy as a result of the multiple light sources instead of sharp and clear as shadows are on a bright sunny day. There is that one area that is darker than the other areas of the shadows. That is where the shadows overlap.
How many light sources do we try to stand in front of? (I know that's not good grammar, but humor me) How many truths have we sought to follow? How many shadows do we cast to our friends? According to the light sources we could be casting all sorts of shadows for them. That makes the results fuzzy or murky to understand. If we have chosen to live our lives in the face of the one true light of the world then we will cast only one shadow before our friends. The cross.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men." John 1:1-4 Every day we stand in the path of that light. Every day we cast a shadow. But this is different. We don't block out the light. We help people see what is in the light. Since Jesus is the light the shadow we cast must be of the cross. Any other shadow and we've brought in another light source.
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...He was the Minister of the Minorsville Christian Church located near Stamping Ground, KY.
...Becky and Tom have three children; John, single and in worship ministry in Nicholasville, Kentucky; Sean, married (Jennifer, elementary school teacher) with twins (Grace and Patrick, b.d. 10/31/04) and regional director of Papa John's Pizza in Central KY; Kara, married (Vince Taylor, prison guard) and working with Hospice East in Winchester, KY.
...Tom went to be with the Lord on November 13, 2009 after a lengthy battle with cancer. If you have been touched by Tom's writings please send an email to Tom's son at jkelley@catalystchristian.net
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