Running Up The Sunbeam

“This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore.

“Gratitude exclaims, very properly, ‘How good of God to give me this.’ Adoration says, ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!’ One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.

"One could, if one practiced, hear simply a roar and not the roaring-of-the-wind. In the same way, only far too easily, one can concentrate on the pleasure as an event in one’s own nervous system—subjectify it—and ignore the smell of Diety that hangs about it.”

- C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

One really wonderful thing about kids is their sense of wonder. You don’t realize how much of that we’ve lost as adults until you start hanging out with kids all the time. Today Esme stood around watching Elijah bounce a small rubber ball in a plastic cup, and every time the ball bounced high enough to fall out of the cup she’d dissolve into peals of laughter. Today Eric pulled some weeds and thought the way he could see the roots winding through the dirt was exciting enough to call me out into the hot sun to see. Today Ellie shut herself in her room because she was so excited about reading a new book undisturbed. Today they marveled over the full moon, Lego creations, tater tots, a tent, cubes of cheese.

Of course there is a sense of presence and attention that kids have, to even the little things. But there is also a sense of admiration and awe. In its purest form, they aren’t trying to compare it to something else or get more of it for themselves (though there’s certainly plenty of that at times): they just delight and wonder. They adore.

I like how Lewis puts it: he says we automatically attach meaning to sensing. “When the wind roars I don’t just hear the roar; I ‘hear the wind.’” And in the same way, receiving a pleasure and recognizing its divine source ought to be a single experience. This is what separates gratitude from adoration: rather than thanking God for having something, we ask ourselves, what does this show me about God?

And in a way, it is like the analogy he gives of running your mind up the sunbeam to the sun. When you see a sunbeam, you see a ray of light and some dust motes: when you look at the sun, you burn your retina. You look from a beam of light to an orbit-inducing star 109 times the diameter of our planet. It’s not really comparable, yet it’s only by looking at the beam, and seeing everything else by it, that we begin to understand the sun at all.

I think doing this is a combination of intentional presence and practice. Everything we consume in our culture tells us to pursue pleasure for the sake of pleasure, and is designed to make us want more of it. To be content, to be present, to enjoy pleasure in light of the God it reveals—well, I think that actually enhances the pleasure. It allows us to delight within the context of purpose and promise. It deepens my adoration of God which in itself is one of the pleasures I am most designed for.

Ironically I was doing this about the sun the other day. It’s been oppressively hot, and I got to thinking about how in heaven we are promised that the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat [Rev 7:16], not because there will be perfect 70-degree weather every day, but because there will be no sun: the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” [Rev 21:23]. God will be our sun. The sun I experience now is just a foreshadowing of the glory of God that will literally be my light for eternity. Everything about the sun now—its ability to sustain life and affect climate, its stability, its size, even its weighty radiance that melts me into the ground with sweat and heat—points to God. It’s like a huge clue that’s always been there, but that I’m only just now picking up on. Receiving not just the pleasure of a sunny day, but how it reveals a quality of God I can adore him for.