Radiance and glory in the darkness

This week the predominant "colour" around most of the country has been white, with heavy snowfalls in places that are not used to it any more. (I couldn't believe it when the main evening news at the beginning of the week made such a fuss about the snow. Out of a 30 minute bulletin of 'national and international' news, 18 minutes was spent talking about snow in London! So there was nothing more important happening in the world??)
Anyway, the picture above has no snow in it. It was taken a few weeks ago in the north of Scotland near to my sister's home when I had gone for a walk with one of my daughters. It wasn't the best photograph taken at the time but I like it for a very simple reason- the colours.
For many people winter in this country is a time when colour seems to disappear, both literally and metaphorically. Everything becomes drab and grey.
There are no flowers to brighten the landscape. Most trees have shed their leaves.
There is usually lots of rain (not so different from the summer then...)
It is also a time when many people feel pretty down and even depressed. The colour seems to drain out of life itself.
What this photograph says to me, however, is that there is colour: it has just become much more muted and subtle. It requires a closer look. It's impact is not so immediate or so strong, but the colours are there.

I'm reminded of a 'letter' allegedly written in 1513 by an Italian called Fra Giovanni (Brother John.)
I may have quoted it before.

I am your friend
and my love for you goes deep.
There is nothing I can give you which you do not have,
but there is much, very much, that,
while I cannot give it, you can take.

No heaven can come to us
unless our hearts find rest in today.
Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future
which is not hidden in this present little instant.
Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within our reach is joy.
There is radiance and glory in the darkness
could we but see —and to see
we have only to look.
I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver,
but we, judging its gifts by the covering,
cast them away as ugly,
or heavy or hard.

Remove the covering and you
will find beneath it a living splendour,
woven of love, by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it,
touch the angel's hand that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial,
a sorrow, or a duty, believe me,
that angel's hand is there,
the gift is there,
and the wonder of
an overshadowing presence.

Our joys, too, be not
content with them as joys.
They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose,
so full of beauty–beneath its covering–
that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all.
But courage you have,
and the knowledge that we are
all pilgrims together,
wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this time, I greet you.
Not quite as the world sends greetings,
but with profound esteem and with the prayer
that for you now and forever,
the day breaks,
and the shadows flee away.



This photograph was taken on the same morning.
Amazing what a little bit of blue sky does to the landscape!