Last night's snowfall and today's clear skies made for many light filled moments today, starting with sunrise in the parking lot. Then there was sparkling ice on fences and trees, full of beauty even when it weighed branches down. I spent more time knocking snow off branches than taking pictures, and the top of the arborvitae is no longer bowed down to the ground. Ice was everywhere.

There's a large flock of sparrows that normally shelters in our privet hedge. The hedge was half its normal height even after John freed the branches from snow. While they slowly recovered, a portion of the flock settled in our locust tree instead, their wings catching the light as they landed. The geese, on the other hand, flew overhead, heading towards the sun.

This morning's gentle rain put beads of light on our bare Japanese maple -- take this photo and multiply it by ten to get a picture of the whole tree. My eye could see all the beads of light when looking at the whole tree, but the camera couldn't.

By early afternoon, the rain shifted to snow, seen here on the last two leaves left on the maple.

And the snow continues to fall -- when I look out the window, the sky and the yard are full of light, held by the snow, though now it is well after sunset.

Here's our first Advent candle lit and burning, just before I closed the curtains, at that time of day when light and darkness mingle, in this season of the year where we're thinking more about darkness and light.

One of the hymns we sang this morning at church was "O Savior, rend the heavens," #175 in the Hymnal Worship Book.

The second and third verses brought visuals to mind for me, all photos I've taken in the last couple days.

Drop down, you clouds,
and torrents bring,
to Jacob's line
rain down a King.







(This is one of four stained glass windows in our meeting space, made by Wilma Harder. It was also raining outside, and there are light-filled raindrops on the bush outside the window, though it's hard to see in the photo when it is this size.)

O earth,
in flow'ring bud be seen,
clothe hill and dale in garb of green.


(Our forsythia has buds flowering totally out-of-season.)

The kids are home for Thanksgiving and this afternoon we went for a walk to enjoy the surprisingly warm weather. Plenty of late afternoon sunshine lighting up dried plants, fences, and mushrooms

_ Late Wednesday evening John dropped me off at the South Bend airport and went off to park the car. We were there to pick up our son, and since his bus wasn’t in yet, I wandered around the waiting area. I ambled over to the vending machines, not hungry, but curious about what they offered.

There was an African-American man with a trim, salt-and-pepper beard looking over the selections. When he realized I was looking at the same machine, he stepped back with a word of apology. “I was just trying to find the prices,” he said. “I’m not really buying.”

I nodded. “Me either.”

We contemplated the cookies and potato chips and saw the prices at almost the same moment.

“Damn!” he said, and a beat later I said, “Goodness!”

At the same time, he caught himself with a “Sorry, excuse me,” and went on, “Yeah, goodness!” and chuckled.

I hadn’t really heard what either of us had said till then, hearing instead our common meaning that the junk food was way overpriced, but something about these parallel but opposite exclamations  continues to amuse me.

“Damn” is actually quite appropriate. I’m reminded of a Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman story in which a personified Famine is the CEO for the Newtrition corporation, which produces food made of “spun, plaited, and woven protein molecules, capped and coded, carefully designed to be ignored by even the most ravenous digestive tract enzymes; no-cal sweeteners; mineral oils replacing vegetable oils; fibrous materials, colorings, and flavorings.” The end result is a food that looks like any other food except that it costs more and you starve to death eating it. And Famine’s goal is quite literally the damnation of those who eat the food. The vending machine choices weren’t from the Newtrition company, but cost and nutrition-wise, they were near cousins.

So what about my “Goodness” exclamation?

It comes from childhood training and a continued adult commitment to not readily use swear words -- if I'm going to say them, I mean them. Mostly 'goodness' was just a sound. I certainly didn’t mean there was anything much good about either the food choices or the prices.

Perhaps at a deeper level it is a prayer, a blessing. Instead of a “damned if I’ll eat that, or pay that,” perhaps it can be “may goodness and mercy abound, even here, despite overpriced junk food.” Or maybe at some level it is a plea: “Goodness, come rescue us!”

The man and I strolled back to the seating area, he shaking his head. “Buying two of those would be more than I’m paying for my Thanksgiving dinner.” I laughed, agreed, and went off to join John.

And goodness did abound with our Thanksgiving dinner, shared with family and friends who brought much good food, conversation and laughter.

Here’s some sparks of light on the cranberries, encountered during my preparation of apple-cranberry pie, just before I added the crumb topping.

What a difference the sun makes! I had reserved a turkey at one of the farmers' market stands, and this morning I drove towards Elkhart to pick it up. I went over some of the same roads as yesterday. What was bland gray then was transformed by sunshine. And yesterday's non-stop rain left everything feeling fresh and bright.

Back home again, as I carried the turkey in to the house, the sunshine highlighted a thriving violet by the corner of the garage. The plant has obviously been there awhile, but I've never noticed it before. And now, at the end of November, it's blooming. Surprise!

I drove over to Elkhart for a meeting this morning and took the country roads, past fields that a few days ago were golden with sunshine. Not today. Today there was a thick gray cloud cover, and the bare trees were dark gray, the harvested soy fields were rusty gray, and the harvested corn fields were dun, with scarcely a ghost of pale gold remaining.

It wasn't a landscape for sparks of light, at least not photographic ones. It occurred to me that it is easy to find sparks in full sunshine -- so easy that we quickly take it for granted. And in darkness, the light  stands out in vibrant contrast. The real challenge is finding light when life is gray, and all energy and life seems bleached away.

I thought I'd probably be writing about moments of light from conversations or from my visit to the seminary library, and I certainly could do that with memories from today. But I'll save some of the reading sparks for another day and post the one photographic spark I did find.

I came out of the seminary library into a downpour and hurried to my car. No glory of gulls today. But these berries on low bushes by the sidewalk were dripping light, thanks to the rain.

One of the electives during second hour at Assembly yesterday was a Taize-style song and prayer service. The room was dim; the rough wood cross was on the floor again, swathed in a fabric of deep blue with gold highlights; the Christ candle was lit, and terracotta platters of sand stood ready to receive our small white candles.

The service moved peacefully through scripture, silence and song, with musicians contributing their skills on piano, recorder, guitar, cello and violin. The last song, the one we sang over and over as we lit the small candles and prayed around the cross, was Within our darkest night, which includes the line, you kindle the fire that never dies away.

Something in the music sounds Spanish to me, though the composer is French, and I think of St John of the Cross, the medieval Spanish mystic and poet who drew on flame imagery to describe his experience of encountering the divine, in his poem Llama de Amor Viva -- the living flame of love.

The living flame of love. Light in the darkness.

In French, the song is not so much a statement as a prayer -- dans nos obscurites, allume le feu qui ne s'etaint jamais -- in our obscurities, our darkness-es, light the fire that never goes out.

We are coming down to the dark time of year -- the gray days, the long nights, the cold winds. Amongst those singing were those wrestling with a personal dark season -- illness, loss, grief. One young visitor struggled with tears.

I don't know what each one there carried in their hearts, what sorrows, what hopes, how they heard the words. For some, the darkness might seem overwhelming. But they were there, holding the candles, praying, being held by the song.

Light in the darkness. The living flame of love.

November pulled up a gray cloud blanket last night, making today a good one for writing about a memory of light.

Three years ago, almost to the day (11-21-2008), I came out of the main seminary building at AMBS, heading towards my car, and had the great good fortune to witness an incredible combination of birds and sunset. I've tried finding words for the experience several times. Mary Oliver's Snow Geese almost fits, but also inspired me to try my own poem version.

Glory of Gulls  -- Sally Weaver Glick
“Oh, to love what is lovely and will not last!” 
                                    from Snow Geese, by Mary Oliver

 Mine were not geese,
            but gulls
                half-glimpsed,
                a white-winged swirl,
                        sunset lit,
                against dark clouds.

A few?
    A flock?
            I turned to look
            but found
                no end, no bound, no
                    one last bird

only more and more
        a migration,
                a jubilation,
                        a glory of gulls.

A river,
        ever flowing from the south,
                dim grey ghosts
                        in a grey sky, till
                caught by the light
                        they blaze
                            into bright life

and fly on
    northwards,
            a flurry now of golden notes
                    floating
                drifting
                    dancing a silent song,

a thousand flickering flames,
        tongues of fire,
                fiery sparks
                    scattered by the setting sun. I

catch my breath,

and drink delight.

The gulls have gone
and I've gone on, yet
still

I stand
and gaze,
gaze again
and breathe out
                     glory

                     glory

                      glory.

A day full of sunshine, and enough warmth to melt the water in the birdbath on the south of the house, filling it with light. Perhaps this sparrow is also collecting sparks of light.

When I was a seminary student in the 90's, I regularly drove the back roads between Goshen and Elkhart, and loved watching the change of seasons. I had an errand in Elkhart this afternoon and took the old familiar route, under a sun-washed sky. The trees are mostly bare and brown now, and the fields are tawny with corn stubble, and dry grasses, catching the light.

It was barely 5:30 when I got back to Goshen, but the sun was dropping quickly. I'd hoped to find more scenes with sun and dry grass on campus, but traffic was backed up waiting for a train, so I recorded the sun-dappled sky instead.

I needed a video camera to do justice to today's spark of light. I looked out my study window around noon, and the back yard was full of activity.

The flock of sparrows flitting between the privet hedge, the arborvitae, and the birdfeeder are a familiar sight, though it isn't often that there are twenty or so hopping around under the feeder.

This all looks quite peaceful -- you have to add the constant coming and going, and the sudden scattering every time a truck passed.

And the four or five cardinals that were playing tag, and the nuthatch that danced down the trunk of the neighbor's silver maple, and the chickadee that swooped in to join the crowd at the feeder, and the pair of juncos that checked out the debris under the feeder, and the house finch with the wind-ruffled feathers.

And this goldfinch,puffing itself up for warmth.

The cardinals were mostly too busy to pose, but this fellow did perch on the feeder long enough for a portrait.

And then the wind ruffled his dignity and he took off to join the wild rumpus.

Most of the leaves are down, the weather is turning colder, Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Must be the middle of November. But there are still a few stalwarts out in the garden.

I picked swiss chard and brussel sprouts for supper, and enjoyed the interaction of light on the leaves and on droplets of water.

The bronze-gold raspberry leaves are still on the canes, creating graceful golden arches on the edge of the garden.

And who knew that veggies can get downright pugnacious at times? The caption with this crabby cole is "Who ya calling sprout, kid?"

Yesterday I was early for meeting my sister, so I stood in Schrock plaza and wondered how my search for sparks of light will shift as the weather turns colder and cloudier.

My eye has been repeatedly drawn to the interplay of light and the colorful fall leaves the last few weeks. Most of the leaves are down now, and yesterday was a gray morning, though warm. I waited and wondered where I would find moments of light.

Gradually the bare branches against the lightening sky drew my eye.

_The sun was rising, and the clouds blowing away, revealing the nearly full moon they had been hiding.

I'm not sure how the search will evolve -- I'm still holding the option that some winter days may be the time to bring out photos gathered during sunny, colorful fall days, or that I'll look for more metaphorical sparks of light in songs and writings -- but so far each day seems to have brought some special spark of light and delight.

Today's sparks came as the sun began burning off the morning's heavy fog. The trees and bushes in the front yard may have lost their leaves, but they were bedecked with diamonds this morning.

I wish i had been able to get my camera up in time to record the other image I received -- the flock of geese that came ghosting overhead, half hidden by fog, but undersides white with sun.

A friend recently asked how the blog was going and whether I thought I'd keep it up. Good, I told her. It seems to be an integral part of this prayer practice -- yes, there is being aware of the moments of light I encounter each day, but there is something essential about picking a few of those moments and sharing them in image or words. Or, to use Mary Oliver's words: "Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it."

First there's the paying attention, watching for the sparks that make me go "ooo -- look at that." And usually the "that" is something fleeting, unique to this moment. I'm finding I want to record images as I discover them, as the world has composed them, with the particular combination of light, shadow, object that happened to catch my eye.

Perhaps that's why I like these "wind/leaf compositions," both seen in the gutter of a Kalamazoo street yesterday.

It was a cloudy day, so there's not much light sparking, or even shimmering. The spark comes more from enjoyment in the moment of this particular but fleeting combination of leaves, road, shadow.

I'm finding that part of the fun is the sense of discovery. What will catch my eye today? What will astonish me? Can I take a moment and receive that, with thanks?

And then there is the anticipation as I load the photos into the computer and look at them on the bigger screen. What did I find? What was I able to catch in an image? What is the story I want to share today?

And sometimes the astonishment comes with what technology is able to do. I was able to figure out how to recover the photo I accidentally deleted the other day, so here it is -- a different combination of leaves, road, and light.

John and I are spending a weekend away, in celebration of our 30th wedding anniversary -- there's a spark of light right there! Our anniversary is actually the first of August, but we were busy celebrating Beth and Jesse's wedding that week.

Earlier today we visited the Kalamazoo Institute of Art, to see their exhibit of Japanese pottery. There is also an exhibit of etchings, titled Shimmerings of Light, Mysteries of Shadow, which strikes me as an excellent option if I ever want to rename this blog.

Today's photos come from the buffet lunch at Saffron's, an Indian restaurant whose flavorful dishes provided an inward spark of light. My mouth is still happy.

We also enjoyed the decor. Each booth had its own artwork, all variations on a blend of traditional and contemporary. It's hard to tell in the photo below, but those diamonds and circles are mirrors, each reflecting light in its own way.

More reflections here, with the interaction of light and water and glass.

And here's a different sort of interaction of light and water and glass, seen across the way. . . a little apple light.

We got enough snow to stick last night, though it has melted by now. I spent the morning at Pathways Retreat Center, and was able to spend some of that time looking for sparks of light generated by melting snow and ice.

During this morning's walk I stopped to record the progress on the solar water heating project for Goshen College's Recreation-Fitness Center. As I took the photo, my eye was caught by the light reflecting from the glass insulators on the nearby telephone pole. They hardly show in the photo, and I've never noticed them before in all my many times of walking past, but for some reason this morning I was intrigued by the variation in colors and had to go over for a closer look.

The sunlight streamed in the front window all morning, and then it turned cloudy around noon. I already had plenty of material to draw on for this log of sparks of light, but when the sun came out briefly about 4:30, the scarlet leaves on the Japanese maple called to me. Despite yesterday's strong winds, most of the leaves on this little maple are still holding on, and they've gone from a deep burgundy to brilliant scarlet, especially when the afternoon sun is shining through them.

Forty-five minutes later, the back yard looked like this -- the Japanese maple is on the right.

Today was a blustery day, and the mix of clouds, sunshine and leaf blizzard this afternoon would have made for some interesting pictures. Unfortunately I spent most of that time at a meeting in a room with no windows. Hopefully we were working towards light of a different sort, but that's another story.

Instead, I offer two word pictures and a couple photos from this past month.

When I drove uptown for the meeting, the wind was blowing strongly and there were leaves waltzing everywhere. As I turned east on to Clinton, leaves from the courthouse trees swirled from ground level nearly to the top of the brick buildings across the street -- where a flock of pigeons continued the swirl, the underside of their wings flashing white in the afternoon sun.

Back here, John reported that there were so many yellow maple leaves from campus trees being blown down the driveway across the street that it looked like a golden river.

Here's a few leaves that weren't quite so active, from the archives I've created in the past month or so. I keep being entranced by light seen through leaves.

And the leaves in the last photo, below, were a little too active. I cropped the picture and then, in an inattentive moment, deleted it instead of saving it. There the leaves were, still on my screen, but the underlying data was gone.

I'd pull out some words of wisdom about the need to be present in the moment and to pay attention, which is undoubtedly true, but on the other hand, it seems rather fitting that a quickly taken photo of an ad hoc still life, long since blown away, has now also mostly vanished.

Most of life is as fleeting as that. If we tried to retain it all, whether as computer files or memories, we'd be so weighed down we couldn't move. Better to let the wind blow where it will, and the leaves to swirl and dance and flow like a river. And if we record a few images along the way, why, that's a bonus.

Those gray November skies have arrived, but there is still plenty of color around.  A brief interval of sunshine mid-morning illuminated the goldmound spirea (seen here more or less at chipmunk eye level) and the burning bush in the front yard.

And these leaves from the burning bush show where it gets its name, even after the clouds have covered up the sunshine.

On a lighter note, you probably know someone with male-pattern baldness. Here's a recently discovered phenomenon -- maple tree-pattern baldness. (with a tip of the hat to Judy, who made the initial diagnosis.)

I've  got some photos of light despite the gray skies and rain today, but I'm also seeking light. Or rather, enlightenment.

A day or so ago I brought in the rosebud that had made it through several frosts. It's opening slowly and doing much better than the bud that I brought in earlier, which has stopped opening.

Here's the question -- looking at the rosebud, I realized it had green leaves. Yes, with burgundy stems and edges, but definitely green. This photo is of leaves that are still out in the herb bed, reflecting light in raindrops, a photo I recorded this afternoon.

These are the same rose leaves that I photographed back in September, the ones that inspired this prayer practice of looking for moments of light. At that point the leaves were burgundy. You can see them in the banner at the top of this page, and in this photo from September.

So I'm confused. These rose leaves were green in the summer, turned burgundy, and then turned green again. Is this normal? Unusual? This rose bush has been just outside my backdoor for about 23 years. Has this been happening every year, and I've been oblivious? Mysteries, mysteries.

To end, one more rose bud picture (from September), catching the light in multiple ways.

Assembly participants contributed scraps of cloth from many places to make a comforter for Heidi, our co-pastor who is living with cancer.

Heidi has lived many places over the years, and so have people from the congregation. So there is cloth from Africa and Japan, and the Philippines, and other places. And there are many prayers that came with the cloth, and that continue to wrap Heidi and Mitch and the boys.

And a moment of light from later in the day.... Sunday evenings, John and I attend Faith House Fellowship, a small house church that meets in the downtown house that serves as Faith Mennonite Church's office and gathering space. Tonight was the first time for a fire this fall -- light that we regularly enjoy when we gather for worship in winter's darkness.

I spent the day at Pathways Retreat Center for a day of Gestalt Pastoral Training. The yellow maples glowed outside, and juncos flitted around finding food not too far from the building.

There were many moments of light inside as well, ones that I'll come back to in memory, but those are private for the people involved, so instead I'll share a visual. This one fits in well with this past month's themes of light and darkness, and with the past week's recurring theme of leaves. It caught my eye from across the room.

We ended with a song that has become part of our closing ritual and that done with hand movements created by the Assembly dance group, helps us to embody and celebrate what happens with Gestalt Pastoral Care:
        God to enfold you.
        Christ to uphold you.
        Spirit to keep you in heaven's sight.
        So may God grace you,
        heal and embrace you,
        lead you through darkness into the light. 
                        John Bell and Graham Maule, Iona Community

May you also be enfolded, upheld, kept, graced,healed, embraced, and may God lead you through darkness into the light.

from Leaves (in Journeying in Place by Gunilla Norris)
“There are so many of them. Piles of them. I take pleasure in their abundance. More saints than you could ever dream of. Each one singular. Each one itself. Yellow, red, orange, parchment. They sail down in the autumn air like fearless sky divers. They are so trusting – letting go completely. Not questioning as I do…Will it be safe? Will I understand? Will it hurt?...stalling, qualifying, questioning, instead of releasing and taking to the air."

". . . After that the big sugar maple begins. It stands in perfect glory for about a week. Then one windless night I sense that it sighs deeply somewhere inside its gnarled trunk and says, “Enough.” The next day I see a waterfall of leaves. They fall, no, cascade down, rustling, pouring, to pool upon the ground like a large, golden puddle. Yellow earth-light illumines my face."

"I have felt that glow before. On her last night my mother was aglow like that. She was radiant. Neither of us knew it was her last night. Standing in the kitchen she blazed like the maple tree and I said to her, “Mother, you are so beautiful.” She smiled and nodded. “I have the glory in me,” she said. Then quietly during the night, something in her declared, “Enough,” and she shed her body. She let go. It was utterly clean. Only light remained."

Today I'm noticing how much light flowers and leaves hold, even on a gray, overcast day.

Like this petunia. Yes, there's light reflected in the drops left by the afternoon drizzle, but there is also a deep, rich purple light at its center, a dazzling darkness.

And there's the blaze of maple leaves. I went on to pick up a handful, all variations of reds and yellows, a brief fall brightness.

And the glow of another maple leaf, perched on the ruddy gloss of holly.

And the kousa dogwood in our backyard glowed with its own inner light. It's enough to make you want to burst into song...
    There's a fire in the bush a burning.....