The House of the Rising Sun
Over the last weekend in August, I made my annual trip to the Greenbelt Festival, at Cheltenham Racecourse. The festival of music and arts is a Christian event attracting a broad and diverse group of people. The title and theme for this year’s gathering was Rising Sun and there was a very interesting article in the program – the content of which forms the inspiration for the current ponderings.
Greenbelt Logo
The festival theme itself suggested many facets of the idea of the Rising Sin – particularly as we consider creation and the environment around us. Another idea explore, particularly in the passage mentioned above, was the idea of Jesus through the small change between Rising Sun and Risen Son. This provided, at least for me, a new challenge in which to find Jesus in the image of the sun.
As we reach the end of the summer we find that, once again, we remember the bad weather more than the good. It’s been another year where we feel we’ve seen little good weather over the summer months and, as the year starts to move into the autumn, we face the prospect of shorter, darker days. It’s not long until the clocks change and mentally we start preparing for winter.
Sometimes our spiritual lives can feel like the British seasons – varying shades of gray and damp. Not the places we hope to find reflecting the glory and shine of the sun. The Light seems unable to break the darkness, and drabness, of the weather of life.
I find it worth remembering that, even in the most unlikely and darkest of times, life is not possible without the sun. We need it for all life on earth, and it is always there even when we find ourselves unable to see it. Without the sun, there is no life. Similar can be said of Jesus – present with us in good times and ill, and there regardless of whether we can see him.
Whether the sun is visible when you get up, or whether the change in light shines through your window brightly each morning (as it does through mine), remember our Risen Son and the source of all our lives, and the light for all the world.