June 5, 2026 - Good Morning! It’s Friday, June 5.
My wife’s favorite TV show is the Hallmark series “When Calls the Heart”. She loves it. I think she’s seen every episode - twice. It’s a story about the people in a Canadian town in 1910. I don’t watch it (Did I mention it was a Hallmark show?). But wherever I am in my house I can hear it. It has unfortunately become the background soundtrack of my life. And on several occasions I’ve heard the gospel chorus “This Little Light of Mine”.
There’s only one problem with this. Even though it seems like “This Little Light” has been around for a couple hundred years - like African American spirituals that came out of the antebellum South - this little chorus was actually first published in 1920 by a white evangelist named Harry Dixon Loes. So it couldn’t be in my wife’s 1910 show. I called Hallmark and they thanked me for my input and promised to make the necessary changes.
In the 1960’s, “This Little Light of Mine” was adopted as a rallying cry for the civil rights movement. Harry Loes lived into the ‘60’s, and may have witnessed this. Not sure how he would have felt about it, since his inspiration wasn’t political, but spiritual. He based his little song on the words of Christ in Matthew 5:14-16.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one, after lighting a candle, puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, where it can give light to the whole house. In the same way, let your light so shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
This little light of mine . . . I’m gonna let it shine!
Meet you back here on Monday,
David
cindertex50@yahoo.com
