Glory

the REST of the week #99

Thank you to David for his comment on “Winter” last week that immediately captured my attention with the word “glory”.

Sunset light on trees by the road, Concord, NC

Glory is more of a response than a description—a calling us out of ourselves into the wonder of something magnificent, beautiful, and creative.

Glory is the word that comes to mind over and over when Ricardo and I walk at the end of the day and the sky is aflame with living color—color that moves and breathes and could never be replicated on an artist’s palette.

“Look at the sky,” I say, almost every single time, “it’s alive!”

And then I often whisper to myself over and over, “glory, glory, glory… this is what glory is.”

Glory is the naked trees tinged with pink fire, as if dipped into the fiery sun itself.

Glory is the sunrise that pushes back the darkness and stirs the birds to respond in song.

Glory is the life that springs from death—the seed buried in the earth that, in due time, opens itself for the sprout to uncoil and stretches up, up, up.

Glory is the explosion that released Jesus from the grave. The Life that is the Light of all people could not be contained by death and that shattered the power of evil and the grave.

Jesus came, as promised in the closing chapter of the Old Testament:

“…the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” (Malachi 4:2).

Wherever you are, may the evidence of new life, the rays of the sun, and the Resurrection with its promise of eternal life and the restoration of all things, fill you with hope and joy that move your feet willingly into this new week.

Alicia

By the way:

Next week is newsletter #100. I have been sending something out every week for the last 99 weeks and it has been a major contribution to my own pursuit of rest (is that a contradiction of words?). If there has been a particular newsletter that was meaningful for you or that you remember, I’d would be delighted if you would let me know which one it was.

A few glimpses of Springtime from over here in North Carolina…