Five Minute Friday :: Sunshine

• Five Minute Friday :: Sunshine Linkup

This time I'm picking up words and design from my poster for Earth Day 2012. Why not add in some "Walking on Sunshine and don't it feel good!" from Katrina and the Waves?


…live in the sunshine
swim in the sea
drink the wild air…

Ralph Waldo Emerson


Southern California has become world-renowned – more accurately "well known" – for May Grey and June Gloom, two months that contradict the stereotype of a perpetually sunshiny southland.

Water is life for sure. But in very the beginning God spoke "let there be light" and there was light. Because it was a "real" physical thing, God was able to separate the light from the darkness. [Genesis 1:3-4] God then designated the greater light in the sky to rule over the days. [Genesis 1:16-18]

There's nothing like sunshine! As you walk out the door and your whole being gets sun-kissed by the glow and the warmth of the sky's great light, it feels like everything's okay again, after all. I often tell people I love early morning light. I love the quality of late afternoon light. But in both cases it's not simply sunshine, because there are no shadows unless there's light and my enchantment comes from sunshine and shadow interweaving and dancing as they create space for each other.

It definitely was more than a couple of years ago when I asked the Vacation Bible School kids what it meant for us to be the body of Christ, and one of them yelled, "that we can be city lights!"

Two Wednesdays ago we were planning worship on zoom (as tiresome as virtual everything has become, for meetings with a certain content and particular expectations that really don't require intense in-person time plus lunch, zooming ain't all that terrible)… as we were planning worship via zoom and wondered what music would help illustrate Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, I instantly thought of Kari Jobe and "We are the light of the world; we are the city on a hill" along with "Light of the World" by Lauren Daigle. It even was bonus time because I already knew both songs had several good videos we could use and maybe later we could learn to sing both songs.

Whatever it looks like outside our windows, May Grey, June Gloom, a cloudbreak or a snowstorm, we can take Emerson's counsel to immerse ourselves in creation so we're all walking on sunshine all the time—and don't it feel good?!

So yeah. Jesus in Matthew's gospel tells us we are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city on a hill. We are city lights. We are sunshine!

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