You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
[Adapted from “A Trick of Light” by Tony Chvala-Smith, Jan/Feb 2025 Herald, pp. 8–9]
Light is a potent memory trigger. When it comes to teasing out a long-buried scene from one’s past, it is as powerful as scents or sounds. The restful hues of a remembered sunset can evoke deep longings in a way that is pure magic.
It was an early spring evening. In the contemplative stillness of a worship service, candles bathed the Temple Chapel in a warm yellow glow. It must have been the soft golden shades cast by the flames that surfaced a long-forgotten memory.
In my mind’s eye, it was a mid-July evening. Summer’s long days washed the central Michigan countryside in a distinctive gold-green light. As quickly as my quasi-rule-keeping self would allow, I was driving on M-46 across the flat farmland of the area we Michiganders affectionately call “the Thumb.” The scene brought back how the ripening fields of winter wheat painted everything the color of browning butter.
The destination was a reunion at Bluewater Campground. My wife, Charmaine, was already there; I had been delayed by work until late afternoon. I wanted nothing more than to get to that sacred place for a precious week of what our ancestors called “a foretaste of Zion.”
All this came back in an instant. The vesper light in the Temple Chapel acted sacramentally: the visual and tangible became a window into a wheatfield-colored memory, and through that memory, to what underlay it.
Why did I urgently want to get to that reunion? These aren’t unfair questions: human actions are crisscrossed with complex webs of invisible desires. It’s good to practice naming the wants that secretly drive us. My keenness to get to that camp was, of course, not without its own tangle of motivations. Yet being compellingly “drawn” toward camp couldn’t be reduced merely to motives or wants. There was “more” to it.
Coaxed into consciousness by candle flames, what loomed largest in the memory of that golden summer evening was how the light enfolded everything—countryside, farm fields, two-lane highways, small towns, a driver’s anticipation, a campground on the Lake Huron shore. The light wrapped them all in a gilded embrace. Decades later, I now saw all this as signaling a Presence: infinitely broad and compassionate, yet untamable in its boundlessness.
(continued in tomorrow’s Daily Bread)
Prayer Phrase
“Do not be afraid, for I am your God…” (Isaiah 41:10).
Voices of God
What is the voice of God saying to us? Do we hear the whispers of God’s longing for shalom; God’s dream of beauty and wholeness for all creation? Do we hear the “voice” of God calling to us in faces and eyes, in the sounds of suffering and joy, in scripture and sacred word, in tears and laughter, in silence and noise? Spend a few moments reflecting on when and how God’s voice speaks to you. When did you first feel called to join God in the pursuit of peace and justice? How does the call of shalom continue to come to you through the many “voices” of God?
Today’s Prayer for Peace
Engage in a daily practice of praying for peace in our world. Click here to read today’s prayer and be part of this practice of peace.