When I was a kid, in a summer’s eve,
sometimes bright search lights would
interrupt the darkness, fly and criss-

cross the sky. It was an urban thing
usually signaling the opening of a gas
station. I was mesmerized by the lights

wondering how far up the light went.
And then we would hop in the car
and track down the lights and see

the gas as advertised as the cheapest
in town, at least for a day or two.
The idea must have come from WWII

when lights scanned the sky in search
of enemy planes. Now, search lights
point down from hovering helicopters

in pursuit of suspected criminals.
If I ever think back to the days when
those lights streamed back and forth

across the night sky, I think of those
huge rays as each of us searching for
meaning not enemy planes or the start

of a capitalistic venture. Then I real-
ize truth of the venture is experienced
when the beams intersect and in that

instant, they become us, we become one
and the light shines brighter than ever
through the darkness…

and the darkness becomes light.

*idea from a meditation by Frederick Buechner