Light

So...it is that long-awaited day, the day of the eclipse. So much hype and so many people running all over the country. It has been interesting to watch, especially as a Wyoming child, seeing the throngs of people move through all those small towns. We were content to be in our mountain home and enjoy the 93% that happened here. We had no glasses but I remember as a child when I saw an eclipse the sky was kinda boring but everything else was magical. This time was no different. As I was watching and pondering and even meditating outside I was overwhelmed with powerful thoughts. If I had turned around and stared at the sun, I would have damaged my eyes permanently. We cannot handle that kind of light. It is the same with God. We cannot handle his brilliance with our mortal eyes and yet he is shining on us always. True faith comes not from demanding to look at the light, not demanding proof and seeing all of his light for ourselves before we will believe, but in turning our back and allowing the light to shine safely on our backs while we make beautiful shadows and do great things from the light that is shining on us always. Spending our energy demanding proof or demanding that God show us his love by what he gives us, like some kind of Santa Claus, is damaging to our souls, it leaches the greater vision from us and we lose the ability to see and to be warmed and strengthened. And there are times of eclipse. There are times in our lives when trials or emotions or struggles come between us and the light and there is a drop in temperature and there is a dimming of the radiance and the birds stop singing and everything feels dull and we can be frightened or feel despair. It is then that we must remember that the light has not moved, it is not going anywhere, circumstances or our own decisions have caused a cloud or a body to pass between us and the light but it will pass, the light is available still in full force, we just have to either wait it out or make new decisions that will cause the interference to move along. And even as the darkness is blocking the light from hitting us fully, we can dance, just like the leaves on the trees, and make magical, half-moon shadows and that in itself will cause the darkness to move along more quickly, bringing us back into the fullness of light. God is my constant. I am grateful for the light that I feel shining on me. And...now...my job is to keep dancing, to keep making my shadow something of beauty no matter how much of that constant light happens to be shining on me at the moment.

Place of worship and comfort

There are many different places of worship. There are those who find temples in nature, in their own homes, in a ballpark, and, yes, in a theatre. Today, I got the news of the loss of a dear man who was a friend and a colleague and I am devastated. My heart shattered as I tried to grasp that, after such a long battle for his health, Scott is gone. I was struggling to get my emotions under control as I headed to the high school for the parents' meeting for Seviah's volleyball team. While my intellectual self knew that it was 6:00 and that most everything save the gym would be locked up, I said a prayer that perhaps I might be able to get into the auditorium. You see, this was Scott's realm. This was his place of worship. And this particular stage at Platte Canyon High School was where he had spent his happiest days (and those are his words, not mine). In one of those beautiful tender mercies that God and the universe will send our way when we most need it, the auditorium was open. I listened in on the parents' meeting and then I slipped away and sat in the dark auditorium and sobbed my heart out. It was so right. It was where I needed to be, in a place where Scott was so at home. Life feels rather like a blank, empty stage right now. Now we have to build a new set and locate new props in a show that no longer contains Scott LaBelle as a character and that hurts more than I can express but I would still take this pain over the thought of never having acted alongside Scott on this world stage. "He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again."

A refuge in the storm

Yes, this is a tree, just the trunk of a tree, but this is my blog/journal and I wanted to have a photo to remember this experience. If you look close enough you can tell that this tree and the ground in front of it have a dry spot, surrounded by lots of sogginess. We made a trip to my beloved Bok Tower Gardens on Sunday and we got there and made the trek to the tower just in time for two things, the 1:00 concert and a heavy downpour. We all ran for the shelter near the tower but I could not hear the bells from inside the shelter due to the rain pounding the roof. So I grabbed the umbrella from my husband and I headed out into the rain to see if I could find any sort of sensible place to hear the concert. You see, the numbers that were listed in the concert included Ben Jonson's Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes as well as Bach's Organ Concerto No. ! and so it was seriously like the concert had been chosen especially for me. I just couldn't let a little rain cause me to miss it. As I wandered around the tower, getting more and more drenched, I suddenly noticed that there was a large Spanish Oak, right next to the tower that seemed relatively dry on one side. I headed there and propped myself and my umbrella as strategically as possible against that trunk and I had a front row seat to the most wonderful carillon concert! As I stood there with my eyes closed, contemplating and taking it all in, the thing that so often happens to me at that place occurred, I got a word stuck in my mind. The word "refuge". As I listened to the music and let the word steep through the layers of my brain, so many of my favourite psalms kept floating through my thoughts. The Lord is identified as a refuge time and time again in these verses that I love, and he is indeed a refuge but refuge isn't always comfortable. The origins of the word mean to "flee back" and that is what the Lord is, he is a place you can run back to in times of trouble. However, even as the tree gave me some measure of dryness and safety, it wasn't a complete shelter. The Lord seldom gives complete shelter either, we must deal with the natural consequences of free will as well as weather some of the storms of being human but he never forces us to weather them alone, there is always some sort of refuge available. Again, it is often not as complete a refuge as we might wish, but it is a strength and a place of safety nonetheless. Then there often comes that moment when someone comes along and wants to share your refuge. As I stood there listening and meditating, Karl came to find me and startled me as he snuggled in under the umbrella to share my small, dry space. I am not gonna lie, there was that split second when I felt that flare of frustration, of wanting to keep the entire place of refuge to myself. But my better nature quickly took over and I scooted and let him in. Now the refuge was less comfortable but also warmer as it was shared and we were both less alone. Sharing our refuge can be a tough choice, but it is always the right choice and sharing will nearly always bring added safety and strength. And I felt peace, peace that I only feel at certain times and in certain places and then I carry it with me in that still place inside of me to pull out when needed. I am deeply grateful that I have an awareness that I am not alone, even when I am uncomfortable, that I have someone to turn to, someone to lean my back on, even as I battle the demon(s) in front of me. Oh, and Bach's Organ Concerto No. 1 is the perfect music to accompany this blog post. Listen to it some time, it sounds like a storm at the beginning and then resolves itself into a celebration of conquering.