Per crucem ad lucem

A few weeks ago something I have been wishing and hoping for for years came to pass: my elderly neighbour removed her tree. Now ordinarily I am a great lover of trees, especially appreciative of native species, and will grieve their loss, but this bottle brush was well and truly beyond control in my neighbours courtyard, smothered in noxious potato vine and jasmine, filling gutters with its needly leaves, its roots creating ridges in my paving and heading under my house. But the worst of it was that it blocked completely the low morning sun from my lighting and warming my living room all winter. 

Earlier this year when we had a blackout that saw all the folks in my complex standing around chatting and exclaiming in common areas I mentioned this wretched tree to another neighbour, and being the handy and helpful person he is he offered to take it down, with my assistance. But he hadn’t yet found the time and I was so relieved and overjoyed to see the professionals arrive for the job as we were going to wreck ourselves trying.

I am one of those fresh-air fanatics who sleeps with the window open all year, in rain and snow, so the first thing I do when I swing out of bed pre-dawn in the winter for a run is go over and part the blinds to shut the window and briefly look out at the day. One of the first days after the tree went down I looked out and there on the skyline I could see a cross I had never been able to see before, silhouetted against the coming dawn. This strangely moved me, but mostly I am too cold and hurried at this hour to ponder, though one morning I did trip back around the bed for my phone to take the photo above.

Then only days later I read of an old latin aphorism from the medieval church – per crucem ad lucem, through the cross to the light – which articulated what had moved me by seeing first thing in the morning this cross against the rising sun. 

I came upon this aphorism in the book Prayer in the Night, by Tish Harrison Warren, which I have loved and you should just read. I couldn’t paraphrase it any better, so here is a portion:

God loves us passionately and wants to bring us joy and flourishing, but this doesn't preclude a cross. God's love is refracted through the cross, which often makes it hard to see or recognize. But if we are to learn to trust—to place the weight of our lives on the love of God--we can only learn this through the cross. 

We come to know and trust God's love more deeply through our own crosses, the things that make us feel we cannot go on, the things that make us tired--the job loss, the break up, the sickness, the loneliness, the long struggle with sin, the estrangement from a friend, the disappointment, the deaths of those we love, our own death.

I wish there were some easier way, some way to learn to trust God that was paved with luxury and endless ease, but per crucem ad lucem: the way to the light runs smack dab through darkness--or more accurately, we discover the light speeding toward us in these very dark places.

It's the thing to ponder when I open those blinds each morning.