The Spirit is like the sun. It is always there,
its light shining always and in every direction, as bright one moment
as any other. But like the sun, it does not always seem as bright to
us from day to day, or hour to hour, or moment to moment – though
even to our perception, there is no night of the Spirit.
What, then, are the clouds that make the sun seem
dim or obscure? Perhaps our own condition: both the things that we do
that put that separation between us and the Divine, that make us
blind or deaf to it until we have put our own spirit in better
condition, and the things that we have less control over – our
state of mind, the distractions of our daily life, tiredness or
busy-ness. Perhaps also something outside ourselves that is pure
chance, like the behemoths and the wisps of sparse droplets of water
and ice crystals that we see in the sky.
Would it be wonderful to live always in bright
sunlight of the Spirit, for the sky never to be clouded? Be careful
what you wish for, for while we may seek to put our whole life under
the ordering of that Spirit, and while we may feel warmed and
enriched by its light, think of the desert, or even of the rigours of
a summer heatwave in temperate regions. The light of the Spirit can
scorch us and parch us in the soul, for it is not in our nature to be
so constantly illuminated.
Written June 2019