At Home in the Kingdom of Light
In the Land of Endless Light
I have been in Greece,
Where the light is its own country
Where the sun magics forth color
As if from a wizard’s wand,
Dazzling with blazes of white
Freckling the face of a cerulean sea
With purest diamonds, each glimmer
A brief kaleidoscope through which
Every blessed thing becomes more
Than it was the moment before:
More clear,
More true,
More its very shining self—
Beauty eternal.
Thirteen years ago, I was living in Prague for the second semester of my junior year of college. My roommate and I spent weeks researching the most ideal (and cheapest) spring break journey which consisted of two trains and multiple buses, four flights, three nights in hostels with very mixed company, whirlwind stops in four different countries, and one sleepless night on the thinly padded bench of an overnight ferry—all to reach the final destination of our dreams: Santorini, Greece. Like any self-respecting lady born between 1985 and 2001 who has seen the girl power movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, we shared a sisterhood dream of journeying to the beautiful town of Oia on the island of Santorini where much of the movie was filmed. And by George, we did it.
It was one of the most memorable trips of my entire life because of how hard we worked to get there. I remember finding our way around at the mercy of strangers in the pre-smartphone era, the countless times we had crackers and cheap wine with bits of the cork plug floating in it for dinner, saving up our scant coins for flaky triangles of honeyed baklava which we devoured in seconds. But most of all, I remember the light. It was different than any light I’d experienced before, both in its color and intensity. This light had substance; it had power to burn, to grow, to bless and transform. The following semester, I covered the walls of my dim college dorm room in wintry Pennsylvania with pictures of Greece so I could remember what it felt like to be bathed in the brightest, purest light I have ever seen. As the years progressed and my memories began to fade, I wondered: was Greece as beautiful as I remembered, or was I simply idealizing it? Was the light truly that brilliant, the sea so achingly blue, the sky still reaching infinitely high above the small white houses dotting the cliffs of Santorini? Would I ever return to that far-flung, heaven-kissed corner of the earth?
In my life, I have said hello to many places. Yet each hello has been preceded by a more difficult goodbye. Multiple moves around the country and the world have taught me to appreciate the wealth of people and cultures I have encountered. But the goodbyes never get easier. I have fallen in love with nearly every place I’ve lived and the people in it, and cannot tell you the number of times I have wept bitterly in the back of a taxi on the way to the airport, or in the back seat of our family van as we followed yet another moving truck to a new state. I still remember what my intern director said to me as I was leaving China after a summer of sweet communion with the people I met: “The last intern who cried like that when she left China came back to live here.” My heart holds many countries, one of which is grief. I share all this in hope of conveying just how sweet it was to return to one of the most beautiful places tucked away in my heart—a place I never thought I’d see again—but this time, with my beloved family and husband.
Last week I stood on the caldera cliffside of Santorini once more, blessing the light. It was a joy to share with my family some of the places I had been, and to see those places anew through their eyes. I wandered the narrow streets with my fingers tracing the curve of whitewashed walls in quiet greeting, reflecting upon all that has happened since I last walked those streets: two graduations, two marriages, multiple jobs and moves, the death of loved ones, the birth of new loves. Peering through vibrant doorways of blue, yellow, and red, I thought of how many open and closed doors stood between the girl I was in college and the girl I am today. What a grace it was to find the beauty of Greece unchanged—to instead find myself changed and enlarged by both sorrow and joy, with more capacity to take in the light than ever before. To laugh and explore and smile and dance in that magical Grecian light again was a gift. (I may or may not have wept into a chicken gyro as I told my family how much it meant to me that they were eating gyros with me at my favorite locale.) Saying hello to what I thought was a forever goodbye strengthened my belief in the faithfulness of God as I considered how maybe not every goodbye is permanent, and that God is my first and truest Home.
*
Do you remember when Jacob was dazzled in a dream by a ladder of light, connecting his humble sleeping spot on desert ground to the immensity of shining stars in Heaven? I think about this all the time, how Jacob went to sleep with his head on a rock and did not, could not, have known that this was the night God would come close—closer than his skin—revealing unspeakable visions of purest light and divine presence. Sometimes when I fall asleep I wonder if this is the night I finally see Jesus, or angels, or heaven, or at least something that causes me to exclaim like Jacob upon waking, “Surely, the Lord was in this place and I did not know it!” As present as the biblical story of Jacob’s dream is in my imagination, there is one line that God says to Jacob that never struck me until I knew the joy of returning to Greece, a place I never dared hope to see again. In Jacob’s dream, God makes this promise to him:
I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go,
and I will bring you back to this land.
I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
(Genesis 28:15)
And I will bring you back to this land. How deeply kind of God to promise to bring Jacob back to that exact place of divine encounter and to give him a home there. I wonder if this was God’s way of communicating to Jacob, “Listen. What you experienced here? It was real. It was not too good to be true—I am not too good to be true. When you return, I will give you a home in this land. But always, always, I am your home: past, present, and future.”
If I experienced the love of God so clearly in returning to a remote Greek island, how much more must Jacob have felt God’s love upon returning to the place where he saw heaven kiss earth? Yet as extraordinary as Jacob’s experience was, there is a ladder at the feet of every one of us connecting our earthly lives to the bright glory of heaven. The rungs of this ladder are goodness, righteousness, and truth:
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth). . .
(Ephesians 5:8-9)
We serve a generous God who meets us more than halfway on our journey—who helps us in the climbing and comforts us in our longing for an eternal Home. The beautiful news of the Gospel is this: the God “who alone is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16) has approached us and invited us to live in the kingdom of light forever. Why do you suppose we love the light so much and avoid the darkness? Why is there a shade of bittersweetness mixed in with the beauty of every setting sun? Is it not because it is from Light we were made, and to Light we will return one day?
In the book of Revelation, John has a vision of our future Home that describes this kingdom of light:
The city does not need the sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
(Revelation 21:23)
One day, every lonely wanderer will be brought Home. Every tear will be wiped away and every goodbye turned into an eternal hello, every shade of darkness turned into rays of unending light:
The sun will no more be your light by day,
nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you,
for the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.Your sun will never set again,
and your moon will wane no more;
the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your days of sorrow will end.(Isaiah 60:19-20)
Beloved of God, this is our hope, in life and in death:
And so we will be with the Lord forever.
(1 Thessalonians 4:17)
Amen.
Going Deeper: Watch this music video of Mumford & Sons’ song, “Lover of the Light.” One of my favorite songs of theirs, the video presents a beautiful depiction of clinging to the light in the midst of grief.