A Certain Slant of Light

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons – 
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes – 

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – 
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are –

(Emily Dickinson)

To me, if felt like Winter in Oxford, even though it is Spring. The beauty of colour was emerging in all cherry blossom trees and magnolia trees. Daffodils sprinkled the ground all over the parks and gardens. A breath of sweet air enveloped Oxford.

I walked around Oxford each day, slower than in the past, more in tune with the presence of God in everything. When we rush we tend to miss. I never want to miss anything, especially when my time is limited in a place. So I listened to the bells as they chimed from most of the colleges, I noticed the glow of the stone buildings and spires, I heard the click of my oxford shoes on the stone as I walk through the Bodleian Library, and I reach the end of the passage to approach that certain slant of light leading out to Radcliffe Square and sigh with utter astonishment that a city can be so beautiful. And in fact that these are library buildings. For hundreds of years (417 years, actually) this has been a place of studying, learning, growing. Readers come to the library to spend hours in study. No books can be taken away (it's not a lending library), so you must be there, present in the library, absorbing it all into your being.

In my daily life, no matter where I am, I try to make it my practice of noticing the presence of God in everything. Beauty is part of creation and it's all around us. From the steaming cup of tea at home to the beautiful way the light slants into the passage in Oxford, there is always something to notice and pay attention to. Sleeper, awake! Notice the world around you and be thankful for the little things, for they are only possible because of God. They are there for blessing you. But if you don't pay attention, you miss it, which is like leaving a gift unwrapped right in front of you.