Seeing the Shining, Invisible Sun

Light One Candle

Stephanie Raha

Editor-in-Chief
Seeing the Shining, Invisible Sun

January 19. 2009

By the time January rolls around, most of us who live in the northern part of the United States are tired of the short cold days and the long colder nights. We wake up in the dark and return home from work, also in the dark. As much as winter's chill, the lack of daylight makes life gloomier now than the rest of the year. Still, like so much else, it's a matter of perspective.

After all, the almost 2,000 people who live in Longyearbyen, Norway, the northernmost town in the world located 600 miles from the North Pole, would say that we have nothing to complain about: they live in total darkness from mid-November until February. For the next few weeks, they experience a period of dim twilight while the sun is still below the horizon. It isn't until the beginning of March that the sun truly shines down on this island community in the Arctic Ocean. Then, finally, from mid-April to mid-August, Longyearbyen thrives under the almost endless midnight sun.

One university student there, who, for the first time in months had just had his first look at the sun, was asked by another, "How did it look?" He answered, "Beautiful." After thinking for a bit, he added, "Bright!"

Of course it is. Yet anyone who's been deprived of the sun's splendor for any length of time can be excused for stating the perfectly obvious about a sight we take for granted. It's no wonder that the town has a public holiday on the day the sun reappears, followed by a week-long Sunfest with concerts, exhibitions and other celebrations, while neighbors have parties and sing together at the local pub.

The schoolchildren sing, too. One of the songs they learn for the festival is as simple as it is appropriate: "The sun is good. The sun is great. The sun is warm. It browns the body. The sun shines every morning on me." You can't get much more straightforward than that. But it shows a sense of appreciation that many of us lack for the things that are just there, just part of our everyday lives.

The sun, the moon and stars – nature in all its wonder – can grow commonplace if we don't pay attention. And what about each other? Do we recognize the unique creations that God made us? Do we treasure God's gift to us of His children as well as Himself?

Too often, we don't. Piero Ferrucci, a well-known psychotherapist and author of The Power of Kindness, says, "We live in an ice age of the heart. A lot of people no longer feel connected. The human warmth we so badly need is marketed like a product: traditionally made ice cream, old-fashioned baked bread. But this, of course isn't real. Nothing heals like meeting a fellow human being."

Just as the warmth and light of the sun heal the body and the soul, so the closeness and compassion of others mends our lonely, broken hearts. Our Creator gives us one another, just as He gives us Himself. Yet, all too often, we don't really notice the people around us any more than we notice the sun above us – or the encompassing presence of God.

There's a saying that's attributed to a Jewish fugitive who scratched it into a cellar wall in Germany while he was hiding from the Nazis. It's worth remembering: "I believe in the sun, even when it's not shining. I believe in love, even when I don't feel it. I believe in God, even when there is silence."
And I also believe in His people, in you, in me, in us.