A City Set on the Hill

You are the light of the world,  

not a private flame nursed in secret chambers,  

not a spark guarded beneath the cloak of fear,  

but radiance appointed for the wide, watching dark.  

A city climbs the ridge at dusk,  

its walls and towers catching the last gold of day,  

then kindling into constellations as night arrives—  

no traveler mistakes the glow, no wanderer turns aside,  

for distance itself becomes a witness,  

the silhouette declares what silence cannot hide.  

So stand.  

Let the stones of your life rise visible,  

not camouflaged in modesty's gray mist,  

not lowered into valleys of convenient shadow.  

The hill was not chosen for comfort;  

it was chosen for proclamation.  

And who, having struck the match of mercy,  

having coaxed oil into steady flame,  

would then invert the bowl of cowardice  

and smother what was meant to travel?  

The little clay lamp trembles in the craftsman's hand,  

its wick already drinking light from hidden depths—  

he lifts it high, sets it on the stand of oak,  

and suddenly the room is no longer a room  

but a breathing space of amber and forgiveness.  

The corners once thick with doubt grow gentle;  

faces once averted now lift toward warmth;  

even the rafters seem to lean closer,  

as though wood itself remembers it was once a tree  

that grew toward sun.  

Let your light so shine.  

Not for applause, not for the mirror's flattery,  

not to outshine your brother or eclipse your sister,  

but that they may see—  

see the good works woven quietly into days,  

see kindness wearing ordinary clothes,  

see courage wearing no armor but truth,  

see forgiveness walking without chains,  

and in that seeing turn their gaze upward  

to the Father whose generosity kindled every spark.  

For the light is never yours to hoard.  

It entered you as gift,  

passed through the lattice of your trembling fingers,  

and now asks only passage—  

through cracked vessels, through faltering voices,  

through hands that once clenched and now open.  

In the long night of the world  

where despair builds its own black cities,  

where fear stitches eyelids shut,  

your small, determined burning  

becomes the seam through which dawn slips in.  

Rise then, O luminous ones.  

Climb the hill your Maker measured for you.  

Set the lamp where wind and eyes can find it.  

Let the good you do not trumpet  

nevertheless sing across the valleys.  

And when the morning comes—  

when every hidden light is gathered home—  

the glory will not rest on you alone,  

but rise, unbroken,  

to the One who first spoke light  

and has never ceased to speak it  

through the brave, unsteady glow  

of those who dared believe  

they were meant to shine.