I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. ~C.S. Lewis from “They Asked For A Paper,” in Is Theology Poetry?
I see your world in light that shines behind me, Lit by a sun whose rays I cannot see, The smallest gleam of light still seems to find me Or find the child who’s hiding deep inside me. I see your light reflected in the water, Or kindled suddenly in someone’s eyes, It shimmers through the living leaves of summer, Or spills from silver veins in leaden skies, It gathers in the candles at our vespers It concentrates in tiny drops of dew At times it sings for joy, at times it whispers, But all the time it calls me back to you. I follow you upstream through this dark night My saviour, source, and spring, my life and light. ~Malcolm Guite “I am the Light of the World”
Without God’s Light that comes reliably every morning, I would be hopelessly casting about in the dark, stumbling and fumbling my way without the benefit of His illumination.
It feels like a fresh gift each time, whether brilliantly painted, or much of the time, a sullen and sodden gray.
I fix my eyes on the unseen, as it is lit in the Lord. And then: was blind, but now I see…
This year’s Lenten theme: So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4: 18
Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come. ~Jane Kenyon “Let Evening Come”
And into nights when bats were on the wing Over the rafters of sleep, where bright eyes stared From piles of grain in corners, fierce, unblinking. The dark gulfed like a roof-space. ~Seamus Heaney from “The Barn”
The barn is awake, There is no mistake, Something wonderful is happening here. Yellow panes glowing, it begins snowing. Over rafters a hoot owl takes flight. A safe place to dwell—all here is well— when we’re in the barn at night. ~Michelle Houts from “Barn at Night”
Usually, after turning out that forgotten barn light, I sit on the edge of the tractor bucket for a few minutes and let my eyes adjust to the night outside. City people always notice the darkness here, but it’s never very dark if you wait till your eyes owl out a little….
I’m always glad to have to walk down to the barn in the night, and I always forget that it makes me glad. I heave on my coat, stomp into my barn boots and trudge down toward the barn light, muttering at myself. But then I sit in the dark, and I remember this gladness, and I walk back up to the gleaming house, listening for the horses. ~Verlyn Klinkenborg from A Light in the Barn
Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations. Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies like a snowflake falling on water. Below us, some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death, snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn back into the little system of his care. All night, the cities, like shimmering novas, tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his. ~Ted Kooser “Flying at Night”
The night barn is a type of beacon as darkness falls. Light falls through the cracks to guide our footsteps. It becomes protection from wind and rain and snow. It provides creatures comfort so their keepers can sleep soundly. It is safe and warm – full of steaming breath and overall contentment. It is a kind of sanctuary: a cathedral sans stained glass grandeur or organ hymns.
Yet the only true sanctuary isn’t found in a weather-beaten barn of rough-hewn old growth timbers vulnerable to the winds of life.
An illuminated night barn happens within me, in the depths of my soul, comforted by the encompassing and salvaging arms of God. There I am held, transformed and restored, grateful beyond measure: all is well here.
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To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. ~Wendell Berry “To Know the Dark” from Soul Food – Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds
What is coming upon the world is the Light of the World. It is Christ. That is the comfort of it.
The challenge of it is that it has not come yet. Only the hope for it has come, only the longing for it. In the meantime we are in the dark, and the dark, God knows, is also in us.
We watch and wait for a holiness to heal us and hallow us, to liberate us from the dark. Advent is like the hush in a theater just before the curtain rises. It is like the hazy ring around the winter moon that means the coming of snow which will turn the night to silver.
Soon. But for the time being, our time, darkness is where we are. ~Frederick Buechner from The Clown in the Belfry
We enter Advent immersed in darkness; it exists both outside us and within. Somehow we must withstand it until the Light comes. It is where we are.
We are promised this in the Word: “and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light… Revelation 22:5.
The Word in the beginning set a dark universe in motion. The Word became both flesh and Savior to a world dwelling in darkness. The Word as Spirit thrives eternally to enlighten our hearts, our minds and hands.
Advent is a time of quiet stillness, awaiting the Light brought by His Word; He is a flint struck to our wick – the darkness abolished by His illuminating glow.
This year’s Advent theme “Dawn on our Darkness” is taken from this 19th century Christmas hymn.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, dawn on our darknessand lend us your aid. Star of the east, the horizon adorning, guide where our infant Redeemer is laid. ~Reginald Heber -from “Brightest and Best”
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Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?
Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts?
Why are we reading, if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage and the hope of meaningfulness, and press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?
What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and which reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered?
Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love?
…today, the unseen was everything. The unknown, the only real fact of life. ~Kenneth Grahame from Wind in the Willow
To find your voice you must forget about finding it, and trust that if you pay sufficient attention to life you will be found to have something to say which no one else can say. ~Denise Levertov
We search for the unseen, hoping to find meaning in the unknown.
I am bewildered by life much of the time. Anyone looking at these online postings can see the struggle as I wake each day to seek out what I’m called to do and how to make this sad and suffering world a little bit better place.
I have little to offer a reader other than my own wrestling match with the mysteries we all face.
When a light does shine out through darkness, I am not surprised. I simply needed to pay attention. Illumination was there all the time, but I needed the eyes to see its beauty laid bare, peering through the cracks of darkness.
Light beyond shadow, Joy beyond tears, Love that is greater when darkest our fears; deeper the Peace when the storm is around, nearer the Hope to the lost who is found. Light of the world, ever shining, shining! Hope in our pain and our dying. in our darkness, there is Light, in our crying, there is Love, in the noise of life imparting Peace that passes understanding. Light beyond shadow, Joy beyond tears, Love that is greater when darkest our fears; deeper the Peace when the storm is around, nearer the Hope to the lost who is found. -Paul Wigmore
Light after darkness, gain after loss, Strength after weakness, crown after cross; Sweet after bitter, hope after fears, Home after wandering, praise after tears. Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end, He is making all things new. Springs of living water shall wash away each tear, He is making all things new. Sight after mystery, sun after rain, Joy after sorrow, peace after pain; Near after distant, gleam after gloom, Love after wandering, life after tomb. ~Frances Havergal
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Lined with light the twigs are stubby arrows. A gilded trunk writhes Upward from the roots, from the pit of the black tentacles.
In the book of spring a bare-limbed torso is the first illustration.
Light teaches the tree to beget leaves, to embroider itself all over with green reality, until summer becomes its steady portrait and birds bring their lifetime to the boughs.
Then even the corpse light copies from below may shimmer, dreaming it feels the cheeks of blossom. ~May Swenson “April Light”
For over two years, we have been surrounded by a shimmering corpse light hovering close, masked and wary when we needed each other most.
Even so, the world is not defeated by death.
An unprecedented illumination emerged from the tomb on a bright Sabbath morning to guarantee that we struggling people, we who became no more than bare twigs and stubs, we who feel at times hardly alive, are now begetting green, ready to burst into blossom, our glowing cheeks pink with life, a picture of our future fruitfulness.
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We grow accustomed to the Dark — When Light is put away — As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Good bye —
A Moment — We Uncertain step For newness of the night — Then — fit our Vision to the Dark — And meet the Road — erect —
And so of larger — Darknesses — Those Evenings of the Brain — When not a Moon disclose a sign — Or Star — come out — within —
The Bravest — grope a little — And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead — But as they learn to see —
Either the Darkness alters — Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight — And Life steps almost straight. ~Emily Dickinson
photo by Bob Tjoelker
So few grains of happiness measured against all the dark and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us only the strength we have and we give it. Then it asks more, and we give it. ~Jane Hirschfield from “The Weighing”
I admit that I’m stumbling about in the dark right now, bearing the bruises and scrapes of random collisions with objects hidden in the night.
My eyes must slowly adjust to such bare illumination, as the Lamp has been carried away. I must feel my way through this time of life.
I suspect there are fellow darkness travelers who also have lost their way and their Light, giving what they can and sometimes more.
And so, blinded as we each are, we run forehead-first into the Tree which has always been there and always will be.
Because of who we are and Who loves us, we, now free and forgiven, follow a darkened road nearly straight, all the way Home.
May you see God’s light on the path ahead when the road you walk is dark. May you always hear even in your hour of sorrow the gentle singing of the lark. When times are hard may hardness never turn your heart to stone. May you always remember when the shadows fall– You do not walk alone.
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Now, newborn, in wide-eyed wonder he gazes up at his creation. His hand that hurled the world holds tight his mother’s finger. Holy light spills across her face and she weeps silent wondering tears to know she holds the One who has so long held her. ~Joan Rae Mills from “Mary”in Light Upon Light
Now burn, new born to the world, Doubled-naturèd name, The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame, Mid-numbered he in three of the thunder-throne!
Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came; Kind, but royally reclaiming his own; A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fíre hard-hurled.
Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east… ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “The Wreck of the Deutschland”
Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78-79 (Zechariah’s Song)
It never fails to surprise and amaze: the dawning seems to come from nowhere.
There is bleak dark, then a hint of light over the foothills in a long thin line, followed by the appearance of subtle dawn shadows as if the night needs to cling to the ground a little while longer, not wanting to relent and let us go.
Then color appears, erasing all doubt: the hills begin to glow orange along their crest, as if a flame is ignited and is spreading down a wick. Ultimately the explosion of Light occurs, spreading the orange pink palette unto the clouds above, climbing high to bathe the glaciers of Mount Baker and onto the peaks of the Twin Sisters.
~Dayspring to our dimness~
From dark to light, ordinary to extraordinary. This gift is from the tender mercy of our God, who has become the Light of a new Day, guiding our feet on the pathway of peace.
We no longer need to stumble about in the shadows. He comes to light our darkness.
Merry Christmas today to all my Barnstorming readers and visitors!
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ~John 1:5
Sleeping child, I wonder, have you a dream to share? May I see the things you see as you slumber there? I dream a wind that speaks, like music as it blows As if it were the breath of everything that grows.
I dream a flock of birds flying through the night Like silent stars on wings of everlasting light. I dream a flowing river, deep as a thousand years, Its fish are frozen sorrow, its water bitter tears.
I dream a tree so green, branches wide and long, And ev’ry leaf and ev’ry voice a song. I dream of a babe who sleeps, a life that’s just begun. A word that waits to be spoken. The promise of a world to come. ~Charles Bennett “Sleeping Child”
Oh little child it’s Christmas night And the sky is filled with glorious light Lay your soft head so gently down It’s Christmas night in Bethlehem town.
Chorus: Alleluia the angels sing Alleluia to the king Alleluia the angels sing Alleluia to the king.
Sleep while the shepherds find their way As they kneel before you in the golden hay For they have brought you a woolly lamb On Christmas night in Bethlehem.
Chorus
Sleep till you wake at the break of day With the sun’s first dawning ray You are the babe, who’ll wear the crown On Christmas morn in Bethlehem town.
There was a fire in the wide hearth before them, and it was burning with a sweet smell, as if it were built of apple-wood. When everything was set in order, all the lights in the room were put out, except one lamp and a pair of candles at each end of the chimney-shelf. Then Goldberry came and stood before them, holding a candle; and she wished them each a good night and deep sleep.
“Have peace now,” she said, “until the morning! Heed no nightly noises! For nothing passes door and window here save moonlight and starlight and the wind off the hill-top. Good night!” She passed out of the room with a glimmer and a rustle. The sound of her footsteps was like a stream falling gently away downhill over cool stones in the quiet of night.
Tom sat on a while beside them in silence, while each of them tried to muster the courage to ask one of the many questions he had meant to ask at supper. Sleep gathered on their eyelids. At last Frodo spoke:“Did you hear me calling, Master, or was it just chance that brought you at that moment?”
Tom stirred like a man shaken out of a pleasant dream. ‘Eh, what?’ said he. ‘Did I hear you calling? Nay, I did not hear: I was busy singing. Just chance brought me then, if chance you call it. It was no plan of mine, though I was waiting for you. We heard news of you, and learned that you were wandering.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien from The Lord of the Rings
We wander through this life, sometimes with a destination in mind, but too often lost and surrounded by a darkness threatening to swallow us whole.
It isn’t by chance that we have been rescued and brought to safety.
Our Savior has been waiting for us, hearing us call out for help. Our rescue begins again tomorrow with the Advent of the Light that comes into pitch dark to illuminate our way to becoming un-lost.
No longer do we need to fear the noises of the night or where we take our next step. We are reassured we have been found, as T.S. Eliot wrote of Advent: “the beginning shall remind us of the end and the first coming of the second coming.”
May the coming weeks be a time of peace and reflection: For nothing passes door and window here save moonlight and starlight and the wind off the hill-top…
Give me October’s meditative haze, Its gossamer mornings, dewy-wimpled eves, Dewy and fragrant, fragrant and secure, The long slow sound of farmward-wending wains, When homely Love sups quiet ‘mid his sheaves, Sups ‘mid his sheaves, his sickle at his side, And all is peace, peace and plump fruitfulness. ~Alfred Austin “October”
October’s golden gossamer mornings and evenings with lambent light on leaves and fields and clouds.
We, the homely, are illuminated, plump and fruitful.
How Love turns the ordinary to magic.
Man Scything Hay by Todd Reifers
A book of beauty in words and photography, available to order here:
The waning October moon reluctantly rose, pulling back from the full globe of a few nights before.
I drive a night darkened country road, white lines sweeping past, aware of advancing frost in the evening haze, anxious to return home to fireplace light.
Nearing a familiar corner, a stop sign loomed, to the right, a rural cemetery sits silently expectant.
Open iron gates and tenebrous headstones, in the middle path, incongruous, a car’s headlights beam bright. I slowed, thinking: lovers or vandals would seek inky cover of night.
Instead, these lights illuminate a lone figure, kneeling graveside, one hand resting heavily on a stone, head bowed in prayer.
A stark moment of solitary sorrow, invisible grieving of the heart focused by twin beams.
A benediction of mourning; light piercing their blackness, as gentle fingertips trace the engraved letters of a beloved name.
An uneasy witness, I withdraw as if touched myself and drive on into the night, struggling to see through the thickening mist of my eyes and the road.
Angel of Grief–Stanford University
A book of beauty in words and photography, available for order here:
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