We close our eyes when we think that an object is going to hit us in the face, and often in life that object is some form of suffering, a death or illness, redundancy or relationship breakdown. We can close our eyes and keep them shut, to keep us from seeing, blocking the light, but what is it that stops us from opening our eyes? What is stopping us from moving from darkness to light? Our closed eyelids block our vision, we think to protect us, it may also really hurt to open our eyes and move from darkness into light. However, once in the light we can perhaps recognise the reasons for the suffering, and it is only when we are ‘in the light’ that we can hope.

The boundaries between dark and light, between searching and knowing, weakness and strength, between dying and living are what we want to look at in our prayers for Sanctuary First this month, under the overall heading Living on the Edge. We want to explore the places where we would normally refuse to go, those desert places of great testing and trial.  The horizon is the place where the sea meets the sky and we want to reflect on these boundaries, the barrier between light and dark, between dying and living.