Pondering Light Again

Today's re-post is about light.

Last night a friend of mine, aged 40, suffered a stroke and he was rushed to hospital, where he is in the care of the best neuro-surgeons in the country. He is 40. Lots of us are 40, or nearly, and this is not when we have strokes. He is well enough to be making jokes about this, but still very, very ill.

Amazingly, there is a fantastic community around him and his family, and in times like this it totally kicks in. Our love and prayers are with him, and our hope.

Here are ponderings on light as a metaphor for that hope.

•

Re-posted from October 02, 2008

Light : 02

When was the last time a beam of light caught your eye? No, I mean really stopped you mid-track, so that for a second you forgot what else you were doing.

I remember ages ago walking down a stinky back alley on the way home, tired and miserable. The sunset bounced off windows at the end of the street and made golden pools all along the alley and it has been my little street of reminder ever since – a reminder that gorgeous things come out of rubbish.

Taking photographs, (as I discussed a while ago in my first post about light) it is difficult to avoid the 'exquisite light' moments that happen upon us occasionally, and even for the most quiet, humble soul it is very hard to resist the poetic temptation to make them mean something other than just basic physics at play.

Whether these moments are meaningful in themselves depends on who you are and what's going on for you at that time, don't you think? Whether you need a 'Damascus' moment or just some help picking out the shape of things in a shadow, we are nowhere without light. It doesn't need to be earth shattering, as these photographs from today show – humble, regular, straight in front of you. But I fear we ignore light and take it for granted, some even pretending it doesn't matter.

It's often after or during a storm that the best light moments happen, beams bouncing around off wet surfaces in the most brilliant ways. Don't tell me this is mere physics and without metaphor. Silver linings, and all that. Consider this, that maybe the best light beams are saved for when you need them the most.

Go outside! Get out from your lightless places!


{Today's soundtrack: Band of Horses - Cease To Begin}