The Light of Luminous moments

Holy Island of Lindisfarne

David Adam, a writer in the Celtic tradition and former vicar of Holy Island and writes in his book 'Glimpses of Glory':-

"I love misty days when the sun suddenly breaks through, sometimes I have purposely driven high into the hills to rise out of the fog, knowing that it is low-lying fog and it can be overcome.

At the moment you nearly come out of the fog it takes on a strange brightness, a luminosity that promises something different. Then suddenly you are in a land of brightness and everything seems to be bathed in a new glory: sometimes it is as if the world is being totally renewed in colour and splendour, and we see creation taking place.

On Holy Island the main windows of our house face the west and the sunsets. On some cloudy days the sun manages at sunset to drop beneath the clouds and flood the land with light, every pool and bend in the river picks up that light in a reflected glory. It is then good to stop whatever you are doing for a few moments and let that glory enter you also. Occasionally I have to climb a small hill to see the reflected light better; I have to turn aside from what I am doing and take note of what is going on around me; I have to make an effort to behold the glory. Glory does suddenly break into our lives, yet we have to make the effort to see and experience it."

As R.S.Thomas wrote:-

'The Bright Field'

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it.
But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that i have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying ...
on to a receding future, not hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush: to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Being mindful of the present moment with its potential for surprise as God breaks through in the most unexpected ways.