I take great comfort in the morning light that filters in through the windows and casts patterns across the home. It is soft, it is quiet, it is unwavering. It signals some amount of freedom in my schedule if I am present to bear witness to it, if I haven’t rushed off to work, to obligations, to activities, where the walls of my life often obscure the rich, more natural rhythms of the day.
It is warm. Even in the midst of frigid February, protected from competing elements of wind and dew and frost, the sunlight is distilled through the glass, landing in what feels like the purest form. It is here that I can appreciate most deeply the sun as energy, as life. The rays having traveled so far through the cosmos, to lightly rest upon my quilt, to nourish a budding rose bush, to warm the old dog that shifts throughout the morning, following the waning light as it moves across the room.
It is comforting. I have long battled the weight of depression though in the last ten years, by God’s grace, I’ve beaten it back to mostly only oppressing the winter months. But I can remember a time when the war was year round and some days the only peace I could manage to find was a sliver of golden light across my bedspread, laced with the shadows of the curtains in the window it must have first passed through.
It is interesting to me the things that finally reach us. They are usually not loud, obvious gestures. Loud, obvious gestures are performative, not necessarily because they are dishonest (although sometimes) but because they signal a lack of deep, personal understanding. If there is not authentic understanding of a person’s situation, they may resort to stock suggestions of how to offer support, which simply fall flat in the face of deep suffering.
Sometimes comfort can only be as simple and pure as a ray of sunlight that comes to find you in silent, supportive presence. A reminder that there is light, and it is here, and it is warming your skin with a soft glow for this moment.
When you have a lifeline like that, you keep it, so though I no longer cling to every sun ray that fills my room, I always notice them and I acknowledge their quiet power, knowing that for someone, somewhere, a sunlight pattern just like this one may be the little piece of hope that keeps them tethered here, the small comfort that breaks through the agonizing heart, the little flame that persistently glows, despite the darkness that threatens to overcome it.
And couldn’t he have made it differently if he had wanted? By our world’s standard is the sun optimally efficient? Could he have determined, “You know, this little morning light that gradually slides into view takes too long to illuminate the day. I think I will model it after man’s light switches, on and off, like the artistic engineering of the modern office, fluorescent and full, no dimming, no nuances, no gradient. Standardized. Uniform. Functional.”
No, thankfully, instead he made it beautiful. he sends the morning sun as a gift, as a renewal, as a slow moving reminder that the light of day will come, but first, we have an opportunity to practice presence.
This week I am on break, so I have had more time to spend with the morning sun, thanks be to God. But later in the day, I am noticing the growing intensity of the sunlight. The all encompassing, vast, and expansive afternoon sun that bears down from atop its seemingly direct angle over the Earth. I am grateful, in a different way, for this light, though it is more busy, more animated, more obtrusive in its presence, it is a bright burning flame that fuels the activities of the day.
It is in this comparison that I identify a quality that the morning sun and Jesus both share.
Gentleness.
I have been looking for Jesus. Though I know he is present, his felt sense has eluded me more often than not for a while as we stretch into the final weeks of winter. And it dawns on me today that I have been looking too big, too brash, too obvious, too immediate, too demandingly.
I remember that humble Jesus is gentle and lowly. That he comes quietly, small, as a whisper, as a sigh, as a baby in a manger, as a softness that you will miss if you are even halfway expecting something as grandiose as the afternoon sunshine.
Of course, he is capable of both. A light so powerful it sustains an entire cosmos and yet that isn’t often the way that he actually comes to us in moments of true intimacy.
He comes soft as the dawn that rises the mother who moves quietly around your room, turning on a nearby lamp instead of the overhead light, protecting the first moments of waking that we remember his mercies are new.
He comes warm with the comfort of a fire, drawing cold hands near and dispelling the chill from the air, creating an oasis of vitality in an otherwise barren landscape, a shield of solace against the harsh climate.
He comes quietly as tone and words that are relaxed, curious, nonthreatened and nonthreatening. As a friend that is constant, unwavering, secure with presence that blends your conversation easily, without doubt, without demand, without domination.
He comes as the morning sun, reaching through all of your walls and windows just to lay peacefully where you are, in a shape that creates just a glimpse of his holiness, a little stained glass window of his love, waiting to be noticed, an invitation to accept.
One of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, captures what it is to recognize this light, though where it reaches her here is filtered through the trees, another favorite place of mine to find Him,
WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES
by Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
I remember how he calls us, to be this light to one another.
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16
We get to be the light of the world. But we are a light that gives, shines, and glorifies. Let us learn from the gentleness of the morning sun, the lamp, the low burning fire, the rays that filter through the leaves of the trees.
Gentle, soft, comforting, quiet, steady presence.
That is the only way to reach through the darkness here.
