Who are the Children of the Light?

Children of the Light.

It has a kind of mysterious sci-fi or horror movie type name, but what does it mean?

Today in class we learned about the Dead Sea scrolls and a group of people called the Essenes who are connected to the scrolls. These people labeled themselves the "Children of the Light," possessing a sort of supreme knowledge and purity of intellect and truth.

This got me thinking about nationalistic pride, and how our group pride results in us attributing some royal title to ourselves, deeming us above all "others." Just look at the way we compare our American culture with other cultures around the world. Even when other countries rise above us in merit, our culture will still hold to the belief that our way of doing things is better, more enlightened, and always ranks higher in prestige.

This since of pride is safe in small doses, such as pride in your country and who you are. It unites us and without it, much of what our nation has accomplished wouldn't have happened. Yet over centuries this pride has turned violent when one culture arrogantly deems itself more enlightened than another, without any proper analysis.

During the course of this class we have been taught sorrowful history lessons such as when Christians sacked the Library of Alexandria, destroying scrolls with hundreds, possibly thousands of years of education behind them, and arguably set humanity back 1,000-2,000 years. Because of shortsightedness like this we are forced to look at ruins today, not because of flaws in ancient architecture, but because whenever a new empire would conquer an important city, they would often ruin marks of the previous culture. They were obviously more enlightened than the former inhabitants.

Why? What possesses us to do such a thing. Why do we not learn about what makes us different and try to make it work, instead of determining that BECAUSE we are different, we can't. Children of the Light, those who are enlightened, ought to take heed to the Biblical proverb, "Pride comes before the fall." They should see differences in opinions and culture as learning opportunities, not battles with a winner and loser.

I'll leave you with an example of someone who I believe characterized the "Children of the Light" or enlightened mentality with grace and success. Alexander the Great. He ruled a vast empire unlike the world had previously seen before, and he was loved by all corners of it (practically all corners of the world) for a very simple, yet brilliant political policy; he didn't force Greek culture on other world cultures. He appreciated each culture of the world for what it was, and never sought to brand his identity or vision onto them. He allowed them to be who they were. He embodied humility and respect.

If we want our children to be Children of the Light, an enlightened generation, we must impress upon them those same values.

~Z