There is a question that rises whenever we pause long enough to notice the truth pulsing beneath our days: Are we seeing life in the light of God, or only in the glow of things that cannot last?
We know, deep in our bones, that everything here, no matter how beautiful or thrilling, is temporary. Like a firework that blooms into brilliance and disappears in a breath, every earthly joy eventually fades. This isn’t meant to discourage us; it is meant to reorient our sight toward the One whose light does not dim.
When we forget this, our vision becomes clouded by the very patterns the tradition names as the seven deadly sins. These are not moral failures to shame us, but as signs that we are clinging to what cannot hold us. Pride convinces us we are self‑made. Envy tells us someone else’s firework should have been ours. Greed urges us to grasp for more. Sloth numbs us to purpose. Anger blinds us to compassion. Gluttony seeks comfort without limit. Lust reduces the sacred to the consumable. These are simply the ways we ask temporary things to behave like eternal ones.
But when we begin to see in the light of God, everything shifts. The shadows of these divine disconnections give way to their healing opposites: humility, gratitude, generosity, purposeful presence, mercy, simplicity, and reverent love. These virtues don’t detach us from the world, they free us to love it rightly. We enjoy without clinging, love without fear, and hold lightly what was never ours to possess. The world becomes more radiant because we no longer demand that it be more than it is.
So the invitation is simple and liberating. To see everything, our relationships, our work, our hopes, our disappointments, in the steady, eternal light of God. In that light, we discover a freedom that softens heartache and deepens joy.
Smitten With Goodness 