Our life of late has been a rush and swirl of light, in varying degrees.

Hospital visits, a child with a  broken leg, twin birthdays, baptisms only a week away, a friend juggling new babies in arms, a new niece about to be born, my mother in the ER, mercies, disappointments, sunsets that stop me in my tracks, and love riding carefully against harsh words – unseen, maybe even unknown.

I could write about each of these, for paragraphs and more.

But instead, I want to pull back and look up. At the sun. That incredible source of heat. Of seasons, artistry, illumination, and growth.

A week ago, Doug came home from work and gathered us together to watch something extraordinary. Phenomenal. The sun. Up close and marvelously alive. As captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. 200 million images, taken over a five year period of time and spliced together into an unbelievable display of color and power. “A constant ballet of solar material moving through the sun’s atmosphere,” wrote NASA.

Explosions of fire.

Loops and fountains of light. (A must watch.)

All this. Powered, we know, by the Light of the World. Christ himself.

Then this morning, I read this poem by Mary Oliver. (I’ve been working through a new book of hers – a collection of selected poems. No secret, she’s my favorite contemporary poet.)

The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything

such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

So I am cracking the shutters this morning, letting the muted light in. And to our surprise, tiny flakes of snow are floating out of the sky.

Light, in every metaphorical sense, surrounds us, all the time. In grades and degrees.

What we see depends on our sensitivity and openness.

February will end this week, and I hear Spring knocking at the back door. I can almost feel the shine of it warming my bones, rekindling life.

But I am also painfully aware of my crazies, of my subtle leaning towards power and things. Even in small places like home, children, and relationships. And I want to lean away. Toward The Sun. I want to ground myself in light. Let it fill my body. So that all I feel is His love. That wild love, for which there is no word, no language, no stand-in.

Tell me your insights about light. Physical or Spiritual. And how light relates to love. I cannot seem to separate the two.