THE COLOR OF THE LIGHT

Sometimes I like to sit and meditate in our empty sanctuary during the week.  Other times I just sit there and breathe in the space and look around.  We are blessed, of course, with one of the most lovely and spiritual places imaginable to worship in.  It is not the grandest of churches or even the most beautiful, but it just enfolds me in the sense of the presence of holiness.  Its beauty is not formal or awe inspiring or grand.  It is more comfortable, warm and lived in.  It’s hard to figure out exactly what makes a space or a room seem sacred.  There are many beautiful churches that are well designed and functional that never quite convey that feeling of holiness.  It may have something to do with history, with the spirit with which it was built or ornamented, or with the emotional connotations that its appearance has for each one of us. 

One of the factors involved in our church has to do with the color of the light.  The amber tones of the stained glass windows along the outer walls color the light a warm golden tone that is enriched by the cherry wood that dominates the room.  It seems like you can actually see the air.  The color makes the air around you feel like an actual presence, whereas pure white light simply seems like an absence.  One of the things that every visitor to the old city of Jerusalem discovers is the amazing color of the light there as the desert sun refracts off the golden stones with which it is built.  Our sanctuary has some of that same quality and I have no doubt that it was intentional.

While our building dates from the eighteenth century, nearly everything that we see as we sit there dates from a renovation in 1885.  That is when those windows were done and the cherry pews and furniture were added, all at great expense.  And that is the thing that most strikes and impresses me.  Down through the years, generation after generation has added their own efforts to enhance the beauty and the special quality of the space, and they have spared no expense (our own generation made its contribution with the renovation that was done twelve years ago).  No one seems to have wanted just a functional building to meet in.  No one settled for changes that would just “get by.”  They aimed for beauty.  They paid in money and effort for a little grandeur.  They wanted a place that would inspire.  They worked to make it holy. 

Our quest for some spiritual dimension to our lives is so important that generation after generation has been ready to sacrifice, to give, to work, to aspire, to create a place that would make the presence of God more real in people’s experience.  And so our very building testifies to that deep need in us.  We all need a sacred place.  We need inspiration.  We need moments where some magical combination of beauty and light and atmosphere can lift us out of our everyday concerns and routines and touch us with the poetry of grace.  We need to be reminded that life is deeper, richer, more profound, more connected to all that is, than we usually ever notice.  We need the touch of God in our lives.  Yes, we believe that it is always there, but sometimes it takes the golden glow of the morning light streaming through that stained glass window to open our eyes afresh to what is real.

Try to drop by the church sometime during the week when the sanctuary is empty and just sit and contemplate these things and discover some of the subtle work of God that has come down to us through our forbearers who built it into the very fabric of that place.  We all need the reminder.