A patch of Godlight

I posted this quote on my Instagram over the weekend, but I also wanted to include it here, as it needs to be here in my collection. On a very impractical impulse I bought this little ‘April Splendour’ (aka October Glory, for those in the Northern Hemisphere) Maple tree when I saw it all on its lonesome in Bunnings. I am going to see how long and how big it will grow in a pot, as deciduous trees really are the required sort in this climate of hot summers and cold winters. On Saturday morning the little sapling was all lit up in the morning sun like a "patch of Godlight" in my courtyard.

Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are “patches of Godlight” in the woods of our experience.

C.S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (Orlando: Harcourt, 1963) 91.

The older I get and the further along the road I go, I realise that ‘experience’ is not some fearful thing that will lead naïve and impressionable folks away from the true gospel, but is an element of how we can encounter God in this world he made (let my diehard Reformed upbringing gasp!). On that note, I absolutely loved this article The Cross and the Machine, by Paul Kingsnorth, that a friend shared with over the weekend. I know I was going to avoid external links, but I am just going to point you all here regardless (and I have saved a copy and am unlikely to forget this piece). The title does not really do the article justice, so just be encouraged to read it.