Dappled Light

An Early Autumn Essay

I write from a path I have found in this season, late after Pentecost, a path that has become part of me as I journey through this beautiful world. I can say “beautiful” and “fallen, hurtful” in the same breath, for the undeniable imprint of God lingers, even in a world marked by brokenness.

There is something here, something more than I can fully grasp. Pause, for a moment, with me. I see the light—dappled, golden, and limpid—dancing before me as the trees offer their seasonal concession. Ancient, youthful, great, and small, the Ironwood and Hickory compete with the Maple and Dogwood for stature but not grace. Grace, like beauty, defines itself by contrast: law gives way to grace, as beauty emerges from its opposite. And love? Well, love needs duty. Painfully gained and freely given, grace and beauty, like love and duty, live at peace—in shadows and light.

Before me, a silent competition unfolds. The Poplar teases with glimpses of golden leaves soon to dazzle, standing tall beside the Sourwood, bearing early signs of scarlet. The giant hardwoods stand proud, content among the unmoving White Pine, its soft needles and scented cedars quietly asserting their presence. In my mind, I hear them: “Let the old Tulip Poplar seek the unreachable sky, and we will safeguard the well-worn forest floor.” The dreamers and pragmatists stand together, one.

There is a stillness here, isn’t there?

I spot wildflowers along the way—beebalm, Black-eyed Susan, and Indian Pink (thank you, Aunt Eva, for sending me to 4-H forestry camp). The taxonomy of trees and plants can be overwhelming. I recommend learning the taxonomy of flora by their community, not alphabetically.

Painfully gained and freely given, grace and beauty, like love and duty, live at peace—in shadows and light.—Michael A. Milton

The Blue Ridge Mountains—North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia—boast the most diverse vegetation in North America, or so I’ve heard. But what I know is that it is something to behold. Still, this morning, I found more than I expected.

North Carolina is a playground for light. It’s true in distinct ways in the other places I’ve lived. You might say, “Light is light, fellow!” And I’d agree, of course. But light changes depending on where you are. The topography, the landscape—all of it converges to make something subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, in its differences. And so, here I am, pondering the light. Not just any light. This light.

Why this light? Because it’s what I know. And sometimes, that’s all we can hold on to: what is before us, what we see, and what we know now.

In the twilight of Advent, the salt marshes near Kiawah Island glow golden, diamonds sparkling in cerulean waters. By Epiphany, brisk sea breezes blow in, biting at your skin as if to remind you of something you’ve forgotten. By Easter, the Carolina sky reigns over Wilmington, sometimes harsh, mostly, gentle. Beauty renewed, though often bought with patience.

I think of summers past—station wagons from suburban D.C. and Pennsylvania, now replaced by Connecticut’s sleek crossovers. They come to us from all over the USA, and from our Neighbors in the Maple tree nation. We love them all. Keep coming. Many visitors charter a dinghy from Beaufort (pronounced “BO-furd” in North Carolina), heading to Shackleford Banks, where wild horses still roam. These Bank Ponies, descendants of the troupe of horses that came with English and Spanish explorers, are nourished by sun, surf, and salt meadow cordgrass. Don’t feed ‘em—just watch ‘em. Watch them watch you. I remember a young stallion at peace in a stand of sea oats, staring me down, his gentle gaze steady as if to say, “We will be here when you are gone. Thanks for coming. But it’s time for you to go now.” Or at least, I think that happened.

Yes, the light of late Pentecost on the coast is something else entirely—bouncing off the ocean’s surface, child-like, and playful in the water; maybe, staying in too long, as the mother duck, like the fading season, quacks at the ducklings. But here, in the hills, it is different. By August, we begin to see what Faulkner called a “light in August”—a sign, a whisper, that autumn is on its way. Of course, that was in his Mississippi. But it is so for the place where his forebearers lived. Here, in western North Carolina the light is washed clean by the gentle white pine, the majestic spruce, and the immovable cedar. The sky is Carolina blue, accented by high-cotton acres of cumulus clouds, those formations that are like aspirin-tin cotton puffs. They are so still. Now, moving a bit. Just a bit.

This morning, I walked beneath a mosaic of dappled light, the September sun flickering through the leaves. The trees are turning—dogwood berry red, pumpkin orange, golden honey. It feels as though the Lord has unfolded a great homemade quilt, packed carefully away last season, and draped it across these ridges. Or maybe an angel from heaven did so—the Prince of Fall Foliage.

And I am thinking about light lately—because I feel I live in dappled light.

A good day here, a shadowed one there. This virus, with its unspeakable name, came into my system and changed everything. It attacked my vagus nerve, the largest nerve in the body, and though it has gone, it left a mark. My autonomic system has been altered. The prognosis was correct fifteen years ago: The thing takes you down in imperceptible notches until the gradual turns to suddenly. That has now happened. Suddenly is a relative term. Yet it indicates things move faster, too far over the edge of the hill to recover, so gravity pulls you downward. You can grab onto a branch sticking out of the hill. You can hang there for a little while anyway. And maybe there’s another branch below that. I don’t know. “One thing it means,” say the physicians in our visits, “you will have fewer good days than you used to.” And that’s true. Yet, God’s grace remains. And what is “a good day?“ “I am upright.“ That’s what one old fellow told me at the hardware. And he’s right. And some days, that’s all I can cling to.

Today is a day of light, though. Golden light dances across the mountain grass, through the towering sourwood, hickory, and poplar, over the country road, down the laurel on the slope, and into the darker woods. It is beautiful. Sometimes, I see a gobbler and a hen pecking around at the nexus of light and shadow, her muted colors, his bright hues framed by the yellow-green speck of sunlight cut out of a burnt umber shadow. I used to see old Mr. Beaver next to a little stream going down the mountain. He was always so busy and seemed indignant at the presence of those leisurely turkey hens “Such sullen, lazy things,” he must have thought. I haven’t seen old Mr. Beaver now for a long time. I miss him.

Maybe the Lord will heal me. Perhaps He has already spoken: “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9). And so, I rest. I need not “rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas’ poetic advice to his dying father is moving but not persuasive. I prefer to whistle in the dark. That is my hope.

But, if I’m honest, even that hope flickers. Whistling in the dark is something I have observed in—maybe—hundreds of people across the years. As a pastor, I have been there at family gatherings, around the bedside of a dying older saint, and marveled at the power of the Spirit of God on the great and the small. Courage in fear. Confidence in uncertainty. Faith in doubt. Light in darkness. I always wondered whether I could be as faithful as they are. And that is the flicker I feel.

Grief, too, comes in dappled light. One day, the shadows are heavy. The next? A new light breaks through. This unbidden grief, this ebb and flow of sorrow and joy, can be exhausting.

Grief. Hope. Hope. Grief. Light. Shadow. Yellow. Brown. Dappled.

Thus, the offer of our Lord Jesus is all the more desirable: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Yes, Lord. Please help me. Yes.

Of course, the path of grief or sorrow is not a pathway we choose. It is stony, painful. The stones cut deep. As you move through life, you sometimes pass by others, like slower hikers on the trail. They started before you did, but the sharp and jagged stones beneath them have slowed them. We begin to recognize pain in our faces by the pain we see in others. But, by grace, the same path that leads to sorrow leads to salvation. And, so, Joseph in Egypt, the weeping leader, a forerunner of the Man of Sorrows, said to his own brothers who sought to kill him, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today" (Genesis 50:20 ESV). And that truth signifies that there is a light that yet shines on even the most difficult pathways: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). Which “path?” All of them. The things that once sought to harm are now in His hands, transformed into a Via Dolorosa, a sorrowful, triumphant way to the cross: His cross and, in some way, some very necessary way ours. This is not “string theory” or theoretical quantum physics. Nor is it a variable. The paradox of the Gospel is the irreducible constant in a world of static.

Thus, your life and mine are like the dappled light, split-second darkness, then light again. And for those who trust in Christ, the end of this path is not darkness. No, the end is pure undimmed, “perpetual light” energized by the Divine Self—the “strength of His presence” (Book of Common Prayer). We will walk, step by step, through dappled light until that day when all shadows flee.