2024, a new year, the beginning of another trip around the sun. Another 365 days to grow and
thrive on this wonderful earth journey. And another chance to absorb, reflect, understand, be
and share the Light of God in our lives.

2024 is the number of years since the birth of Jesus. Using that metric to count time hascertainly been very useful. But it’s actually a very short history of our existence. Actually, we
are all about 14 Billion years old. The birth of our Universe was about 13.78 Billion years ago. If
we counted from that birth, this year would be roughly 13,780,002,024. Calendars would have to be enlarged and it would be awkward to write that date on a check. A smaller number would be the time since the earth was formed, about 4,550,002,024, but that’s too big as well.

Life on Earth began about 3.7 Billion years ago, Early Humans about 1 Million years ago and
Modern Humans approximately 10,000 years ago. The first writings came about 5,000 years
ago and the early Bible stories about 3,000 years ago. The numbers are mind-boggling, but
they all point to one amazing realization. God had to wait a very long time before we came
along. And, only after all that preparation, our behavior was so problematic that he had to send
Jesus to help correct it.

So thinking of God as an old man with a white beard is very unrealistic. One alternative is to
see God as the beginning of this mystical, magical, metaphysical journey that we are now
celebrating in this new year. One thing that has been seminal throughout all these birth events
is Light. The Big Bang started with Light, the Universe evolved as Light, all of the galaxies and
suns are Light, the Earth blossomed because of our Sun’s Light, Life on Earth required Light
and we Humans could not have been created or have persisted without Light.

So thinking of God as Light and believing that everything came from his Light seems like a
reasonable possibility. It ties what we know as scientifically true to what we believe a loving
God might very patiently do to create an environment on Earth where we could thrive. So with
all that effort, it seems like the least we could do is to:

Absorb, grow and thrive in that Light,
Reflect that Light to others through Love
Understand God’s Love through God’s Light,
Be the Light for God and each other and
Spread God’s Light and Love throughout our World