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