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An encounter with radiance suggests astonishing energy at work, known or unknown, at times, often tinged with a pinkish glow. In that split second, the psyche shimmers, stretches beyond the familiar, and gapes in wonder—Even longs for permanence. We’ve been touched and we know it. With its diminishment, its dark mantle plunges us into darkness. The void aches. We shiver and continue waiting for what we know not.
Many equate such experiences with the revelation of God, the dynamic firing of His creation from its beginning as recorded in the bible. Seventeen times, the word radiance is used for God: His felt presence experienced in the Old and New Testaments’ accounts of the Jerusalem Temple and the Temple in the book of Revelation.
Another reference to the word radiance appears in the book of Baruch, this time, superimposed upon the Mosaic Law from which Israel had strayed: the source of their holiness. Preferring idolatry to observance of the law, Babylonians had destroyed their Temple and enslaved them in 582 BCE.
Turn back…in her radiance, make your way to the light. (4:12)
The imperative is just as critical as then—which ever spiritual path embraced, in or outside of religion or scripture study: Humility and service of God, self, and others keep us moving toward the light. Within the light, expect experiences of radiance. In silence and lowliness of heart, they do come until embraced by Eternal Light.
Many know the story of Santa Claus, but few know his precedent: St. Nicholas (289–343), born of wealthy parents in Turkey who died in an epidemic. His uncle, bishop of Patara took him in, raised him, and under his influence, Nichols was later ordained a priest. A pious man, he secretly gave away his inheritance to the poor.
Thereafter, Nicholas continued selling gifts offered him and helping the poor, sick, and suffering. Stories of his generosity abounded
Three nights in a row, Nicholas had tossed bags of gold into a poor farmer’s hovel that landed in shoes next to the fireplace where they were drying. Nicholas knew that the farmer would have to sell his three daughters into servitude or prostitution, there being no dowry.
Even after Nicholas was named Bishop of Myra, with the challenging responsibilities of his office, he continued his secret alms-giving. So graced he was that he also became a miracle worker. He restored the lives of small children their father had soaked in brine until suitable to sell to the starving during the plague.
Nicholas also knew imprisonment under the Emperor Diocletian until released by Constantine in 325, after which he attended the Council of Nicaea and dealt with the Arian heresy.
Legends continued growing in Europe around this self-less man. Many imitated his practice of secret giving, honoring him on the day of his death, December 6, 343; he was only confirmed in sainthood in 1446 by Pope Eugene IV.
With the Protestant Reformation’s outlawing the veneration of the saints, Nicholas’s memory was only retained in the Netherlands where he was called Sinterklaas. Too important to leave behind, seventeen-century Dutch emigrants introduced Sinterklaas to New Amsterdam.
From Sinterklaas, Santa Claus slowly emerged, thanks to Clement Clark Moore’s 1820 poem, “An Account of a Visit from Santa Claus,” otherwise known as “The Night Before Christmas.” Then in 1881, Cartoonist Thomas Nash dressed Santa in a fur-trimmed red suit.
Today, many families still honor St. Nicholas’s practice of filling empty shoes near fireplaces or outside bedroom doors with goodies on his Feast Day.
Outside my study window, another lesson unfolds. Dove-gray skies feel pregnant with showers but only release droplets upon single leaves of the viburnum, then sets them aquivering; those surrounding them remain still. This image speaks of the seeming randomness of physical death: One is struck while others are engaged in life, until their turn—or so it seems.
But a plan far greater than our human perception exists, and it’s not of our doing. At times, the appearance of a life shortened by accident or disease compounds the grief of loss, the thwarting of opportunities, and the shortening of longevity. Individuals must re-group and move on with their lives.
Since mid-June, death has stilled the breathing of friends, relatives, and neighbors, losses that crimped my former world, still further. Questions of how it was, remain unanswered.
Instead of succumbing to loneliness’s pinch, better to pray for acceptance with the mantra:
Your will, not mine, be done.
Such prayer works its wisdom into the marrow of my bones and enlarges faith in God’s plan for my transition. For the present, like the leaf without the droplet, I cling to the viburnum bush.
Heart Whisperings 