It snowed on Friday. A tropical system, full of moisture and relatively warm air, slid north along the Southern New England coast and collided with cold arctic air flowing down out of Canada. The result was a fast developing, very wet snow fall that started at dawn and continued until an hour before twilight.
The wet snow and the relatively gentle wind off the ocean allowed the thick white heavy flakes to stick to every surface they touched. The ground was covered, as were the trunks and branches of the trees. The evergreens groaned with the weight of the snow as gravity pulled them down toward the center of the Earth. The bare tree branches were coated, and a number of limbs snapped because of the weight. Many of my neighbors lost power, and a few people were hurt. It was heavy and dangerous.
It was a day of gray air and not much light. The heavy moisture mixing in the cold air and the warmer ground temperature gave us a thick fog that started as the snow began and settled low to the ground throughout the day. I knew the Sun was up and it was midday, but I had that knowledge more on faith than observation. At least until about an hour before sunset…
As the day was drawing to a close, the clouds caused by the storm system cleared from west to east. The line was sharp and dramatic. Twitter lit up with people exclaiming about the bright blue sky they were seeing, with reports being made closer and closer to where I was. Finally the edge of the clouds moved over our heads and just as everyone was saying, the difference was dramatic.
By that time it was late in the day and the Sun was low in the southwestern sky. The trees were suddenly lit from below. The trunks remained within the gloomy gray fog but the branches, as they reached up to the sky were lit with the most astonishing light. And the snow that so heavily coated everything began to glow with a glistening golden light against the startlingly deep blue cloudless sky.
The sight took your breath away. There seemed nothing to do but grab a coat and rush outside to see the thing that had happened. The forest was still full of the heavy silence that accompanies any winter snow, but the sky was full of glory – and almost boisterous golden light that seemed strikingly noisy against the silent gloom that clung on close to the Earth’s surface. And as quickly as it happened, it ended.
What was most remarkable to me was how quickly we had gone from darkness to light, and then how quickly the light faded into the azure blue of twilight. The boundary between light and dark on the surface of planet is called the “terminator” and on the Earth it sweeps East to West at the Earth rotates from day into night. It sweeps across the surface of the Earth at nearly a thousand miles per hour. I was remembering that as the light faded and we transitioned back into darkness and gloom. Because the Sun’s light had been hidden by the fog and snow for so much of the day, the brief glimpse of golden glorious light was fleeting, and somehow made all the more beautiful.
I was remembering this morning how the light of that day had been followed by the azure of twilight as I heard the Gospel lesson for this Last Sunday in Epiphany. Jesus and his disciples climb to the top of a mountain, and for a brief moment, Jesus is revealed, transfigured in the sight of his disciples, and glows with a glorious glistening light. It is a moment when we see him as he truly is, fully reflecting the light of his Father As the veil between the realms of existence is pierced, he is seen flanked by the living history of the story of the children of Abraham in the persons of Moses and Elijah.
And just as quickly as the golden light I saw on Friday faded, so too the vision the disciples had of Jesus in his transfigured state faded. But the light they saw changed them, illumined something deep within them and made them long for it to return. I suppose the light I saw, the forest that blazed with it did the same thing to me. Perhaps such experiences have done the same for you… igniting within us a longing for a glimpse of the deeper reality that is always surrounding us, yet is only seen occasionally, unexpectedly, and after when our attention is focused on something else.
I imagine the most faithful response to such an experience, since it does not seem to be our part to dwell in it forever, is to cherish it and commit it to our memory. The days are often too short and too dark and the night is long. Yet the day is always capable of bursting forth with an unanticipated explosive force, reminding us of the promise and hope that sustains us and makes life possible.
Listen to the voices that are exclaiming that the light is shining, even if you sit in darkness. And when they do that, go outside and look up to see, if it is granted you, the reason we always have Hope.