I am a collector and connoisseur of light. I hold memories of these experiences of light deep within my soul, and they sustain and enliven and enrich my experience of being alive. On a remarkable day recently, I was running on the local trails, and I was rendered speechless by the slant of light and the beauty of the day. As Emily Dickinson said,
There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
And on Christmas morning I arrived early and sat in the chapel as the light streamed into that sacred space, soon to be filled with those gathered for the quiet Eucharist….
In one of his poems Gerard Manly Hopkins has written,
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;”
In my mind’s eye, I have a collection of such days of remarkable light. They each involve a transformation of perspectives of some kind, perhaps even a transcendence of the ordinary, even if just for a moment. Each experience involves liminal, transitional space, where light seems to symbolize the passage to a new perspective, a surprising way of looking at the world. I recall the remarkable quality of light on a day in Maine, leaving Stonington Harbor in a kayak, looking back at the town as the sunlight, filtered through a dissipating fog, cast a beautiful glow on Penobscot Bay and reflected off the slick head of a harbor seal, greeting my passage there. I recall the fiery glow of the constellation Cassiopeia, seen through a telescope one deep night in June, and realizing that the light from this beautiful origin left there two thousand years ago, only now reaching my eyes. I recall the light reflected in the eyes of my sons as they were born and the many moments since, filled with all the joys of parenting and so many memories we have shared. I remember the light of the sun filtering through the stained glass windows in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on a late October day in New York City, and a remarkable day running on the trails near Mt. LeConte with my best friend, in a driving snow, through which the sun momentarily emerged, reflecting off of every limb and every snowflake, encasing us in a wondrous cocoon of light. I remember a day in March, or maybe April, many years ago, having fallen asleep in a hammock at my grandmothers’ farm, awaking to the sound of spring breezes in the trees, blowing the nearby wind chimes, and seeing the instant I opened my eyes her hand-made quilts, lovingly created, hanging in the bright spring sunlight and reflecting back the many colors of her loving, generous spirit. I recall coming down the aisle at First Methodist Church in downtown Atlanta, and seeing the light in Vicky’s eyes, surrounded by family and friends, on a lovely September day some 43 years ago. And these are just a few.
Conversely, the darkness we each experience on occasion in our lives, and during this season of long winter nights, reveals the absence of light which by contrast, in dialectic fashion, makes us appreciate the light we hold so dear.
“Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone”
wrote Dante. And the Zen koan which I like, a poem by Mizuta Masahide, a 17th-century Japanese poet.
Barn’s burnt down —
nowI can see the moon
For many reasons, this poem has been helpful to me over the years. I think it is mostly a reminder that things change and, even when it seems challenging, can lead to unexpected opportunities. Indeed, themes of darkness and light are a part of our journey in this winter solstice season. In her lovely book “The Luminous Web,” Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that quantum physics suggests that everything in life–molecules, particles, and sub-atomic particles–is inter-connected. We are all caught up in an infinite, luminous web of relationships. Indeed, as human beings–as inherently social people–each of us is the summation of our relationships. These relationships literally constitute who we are as human persons. Taylor says: “When I am dreaming quantum dreams, what I see is an infinite web of relationship, flung across the vastness of space like a luminous net.” (page 54 of The Luminous Web)
Recently we lost the process theologian John Cobb, a student of Alfred North Whitehead, who like Teilhard de Chardin, wrote extensively about the deep, intimate connections between science and religion. Each of these authors evokes a strong sense of being part of a larger movement, participating with the divine spirit, expanding in love and being borne along by love, like the light of Christ, ever flowing outward, just like our universe. We know that light is both particle and wave, and this “luminous web” of light, as John’s Gospel reminds us, “…shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
I am so very grateful for our Holy Family parish, and for each of you. I pray luminous blessings upon you all in this New Year. I’ll catch you later down the trail, and I hope to see you in church!
Bill+
