A Different Light

Ever have a moment of sudden revelation? I’ve been having many of these lately: simply going to and from activities, day to day, when all of a sudden, the smallest thing will strike me. The way the clouds have formed, the way a friend speaks, the stillness of the air, the way a stranger walks across the room… I find myself constantly stopping in my tracks and reeling from the weight of the realizations from these simple things, and often I find I don’t have the words to express them. The lack of words is what really causes me to ache inside: when realizations come with intense feelings I often feel that I need to write to release and understand them, but somehow their intensity prevents my mind from piecing them together in any logical sense. Allow me to share one of my recent moments.

A recent revelatory moment

This picture has so many feelings attached to it. When I saw this scene walking back from dinner one night I almost started crying and had to snap this photo. I look at this and feel an intense foreboding and hope and peace simultaneously. The way the sun is setting grips my heart with longing and urgency. It’s as if the day had reached its climax and everything around me had become ripe and full, ready to be made new by night. This is perhaps more telling of where my heart is at than anything else. I definitely feel a longing for a sort of renewal and sense a sort of urgency for preparing for my next stage of life, but I have no idea what these things look like and that is quite possibly why I can’t seem to properly describe the feelings I’m experiencing. All in all, I have to admit that this moment was suddenly beautiful and I left carrying the weight of blessing in my spirit. Just to have been given this experience felt like a tremendous blessing. I’m still reeling from it.

The Other Side

Today has been a respite, a respose from the inanity of semester’s end. After a late breakfast, I decided to go outside and enjoy the glory-fall. I walked out past the parking lot and sat on a big rock and gazed across the field in front of the school. It was a beautiful moment—gazing and reflecting and praying. I couldn’t help but take it all in, and I was so thankful that my eyes are truly open. When your eyes are really open, you never want to miss a single moment, but take it all in because you become aware of the beauty surrounding you. Each moment is invaluable because it will never come back, and you may never have another one quite like it. It causes you to be thankful even for the hard moments because you can look back and see how it has shaped who you are in the present. So you really can be thankful in all things. Wow.

At some length of sitting and gazing, I decided to go for a walk on a nearby trail. Eventually, I came to this sight:

Art in the wilderness

Look familiar? It should if you remember this post at the beginning summer. The one difference is that it’s facing the opposite direction. At some point since I took the last picture, the pole has been turned around so that the text is facing the other way. It’s symbolic. It points to the fact that I am now on the other side of summer—on the other side of those particular hardships and circumstances. It points to the fact that God has covered me through difficulty and oppression and uncertainty and has sustained, strengthened, and empowered me to live abundantly. It demonstrates the outworking of God’s glory in my life. It fills me with purpose for the present and hope for the future. Wow.

To conclude this post, here’s a new poem:

Patterns

Here and there, occasionally,
I have a thought begin to spread
And germinate through what I’ve said,
The event seems random at best.

Here and there, occasionally,
I have a word to kindly share,
And sharing, I myself do bare
My heart and everything I have.

Here and there, occasionally,
I open what is firmly shut,
Exposing the infected cut
Of solitude’s egregious blade.

Here and there, occasionally,
I realize amid my pain,
The omni-present God would deign
To be near to my broken heart.

Here and there, occasionally,
I bow under a heavy load,
I find that I despise the road
I have unswervingly chosen.

Here and there, occasionally,
I falter for a wise critique,
The very wisdom that I seek
Would sooner be my undoing.

Here and there, occasionally,
I find offense at every turn,
The power of what I would learn
Is robbed of all efficacy.

Here and there, occasionally,
I pause to hear all heaven shout—
This is what life is all about—
And hope springs within me once more.

© 2011 David Andrew