Extremely high temperatures have seared cities and countrysides in many places on our planet, including where I live. A few weeks ago, I found myself continually grousing about “the weather,” allowing a positive attitude to slip away. I needed to recalibrate my spirit, to stop considering the sun as an enemy and remember the benefits. I wanted to approach this life-giving star as a gift, like that in Francis of Assisi’s canticle to Brother Sun: “He (sun) is beautiful and radiant with great splendor; Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.”
Once I sought a more affirming view of the sun, I grew in appreciation of this marvelous light-bestower. I looked first to the element of the sun itself and found reason to be in awe when reading Bruce Watson’s comment in Light: “Each second, the sun converts four million tons of mass into pure energy. The photons made in the process can spend up to a million years ricocheting through the furnace, a journey scientists call ‘a random walk.’ Once reaching the sun’s surface, photons zip to Earth in just over eight minutes. After such a voyage, all of humanity’s tributes to sunlight…seem the least a grateful humanity can offer.”
I recall an Iowa June some years ago with weeks of continual rain and gray skies. Never direct sunlight. What a relief to finally leave that gloom and fly to Vancouver Island to lead a week-long retreat. There the days sang with glorious sunshine. I still remember what joy I felt to see and feel the sun lighting up the outer landscape and the inner one of my heart, as well.
There’s another reason to pause and stop blaming the sun for blistering rays. Part of the cause of the extensive heat waves on our planet is due to the careless actions of large corporations and individuals in the use of fossil fuels and other chemicals that overheat our Earth’s protective atmosphere, trapping heat from gases like carbon dioxide and methane.
I’ve renewed an intention to not take the sun for granted. Poet W.S. Merwin writes about the sun in “Long Afternoon Light:” “We trust without giving it a thought / that we will always see it as we see it.” Imagine waking in the morning to total darkness, no artificial light from electricity, digital devices, or blinking machines, having no hope of light arriving. This is enough in itself to be cheerful about the sun. Or consider the winter days when sunbeams shining through frosty windows warm a room. How welcome those rays are.
“I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam,” writes Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. When it’s horrifically hot, the last thing I want to do is put myself in the path of the sun’s rays. On my early morning walks among trees I choose to be sheltered by their shade but I still value the sun. I revel in how the light glistens on the heavy dew of elderberry leaves and highlights the beauty of the mighty oaks.
As if to confirm the sun’s wondrous talents, I noticed today a small, open circle on the concrete. There they were, three tiny plants smiling at me, thin stems, new leaves sipping in the sun’s amazing power to lift green from a seed ensconced between solid matter.
All this is not to deny the scorching devastation too much powerful sunlight produces. Rather, it’s a reminder of our being able to choose how and where we focus our mind and heart when things are less than we hope for them to be.
Abundant peace,
Joyce Rupp
