Trailing Clouds of Glory do we Come

At one in the morning, after working on a song I need to know for choir, I went outside to see if the northern lights were still doing their thing. And of course, they were - but they had changed. Instead of shafts of light, they were organized in clouds and filaments. Electrical flashes would pulse along their lengths, like the shadow of a fish below the frozen ice on the lake in the winter.

I went back in to find my wife, who was organizing some stuff in the garage that we are storing for a friend. I told her she had to come out and see. She came out and stared up. We both just stood there, craning our necks, oohing and ahing for a while. I got cold, and I had to get to bed, so off I went. When I settled in bed, with the cat at my feet, I looked out the window. She was still standing there, staring up like a little girl watching fireworks for the first time. We are all like little children at the feet of such splendour. The world is truly nothing more than a footstool at times. When she finally came back in, she said that she felt like waking up all the neighbours, and getting them to come out and stare. Sadly, I think a very many people are too worn with the cares of life to take enough joy to be anything but irritated by such a thing. :-)

The night before, sitting on the dock, I had in prayer asked God why he never used words. Sure enough, we had the scriptures, but two millenia later, the people who read them still debate what they mean. As I stared at the lights in all their unsubtle glory, I knew the answer beyond any doubt. Much of what God has to tell us is so beautiful and so full of love that there really aren't any words that can give voice to what he wants to tell us. So instead, he shows us - with all the lights in the heavens, if need be.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God;
all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
(John 1:1-5)