Bright Strange Clarity

Description

Friends, I’m standing at the edge of a sunset, and I want to talk to you about freedom. It isn’t loud or heroic. It’s quiet, unexpected, and sometimes shows up wrapped in chaos. There’s this thing Kate Bowler called a “bright, strange clarity” that finds us in turmoil. In a storm, a transition, even a heartbreak – and suddenly, we see. We feel. We know God is near. In sunrises and farewells, in births and endings, God shows up not with thunder, but with light that pierces through. Swedenborg wrote that in our hardest states, the Lord is “most closely present, although we may not know it” (Secrets of Heaven §840). And when we quiet ourselves, just enough to notice a breeze or a voice or even the sound of a power tool cutting through the stillness, we are reminded: God is there, too. This is about letting go of the manic panic, and tuning in to the slow, sacred rhythm where God’s love pulses beneath all things. Bringing peace and bringing us home.