Seeing the Northern Lights

I live far enough north that getting to see the shifting shimmer of the Northern Lights, like wind across sand, is not an uncommon experience. I live far enough south and amidst enough light pollution that if I want to see them I do have to seek them out on active nights. I don't do well with my sleep interrupted.

There was one night this past summer that was projected to be very active all the way to the sky over my house and as soon as it got dark, not at two or three in the morning. I was excited to see the Lights without too much hassle. When I looked I couldn't see anything but a pale, thin, fibrous cloud. And thanks to social media I knew that there were people quite near me who were able to see the Lights even through the urban glow. I went to bed dissatisfied.

I shared my experience with a colleague who let me know that most of the time the Northern Lights don't look colorful like what we see on social media with the vibrant greens, yellows, purples, and reds. Most of the time they just look like pale streaks and can easily be mistaken for clouds. In the not-so-Northland, it's only when you take a picture that the colors show up.

Fast forward to this fall when I was a couple of hours away from home for a work conference and I was putting myself to bed in my hotel room when I noticed pale streaky clouds across the sky. I thought, "Could it be?" I grabbed phone and took a picture.  The pale showed up green! Back and forth, my gaze moved from the green glow on my phone and the white shimmer against the sky. I realized that this is what looking for God in our lives is like. We are told about God by people who have seen God at work in their lives. It sounds so vibrant, their stories of God's faithfulness. We've been told that God is like dancing colors in the sky, but we're pretty sure we're just looking at clouds. 

Two things can help us to see what other people have learned to see: tradition and a different vantage point. Tradition, like our phones, when held up against what we are experiencing, can help us make sense of what we are seeing. Tradition can be the accumulation of the wisdom of generations past now bequeathed to us. It can connect us back to all the people who have come before and what they have noticed as they stood in awe and wonder beneath the sky. A second way to see the Northern Lights more clearly is to travel to more northerly skies, closer to the planet's poles. There our naked eyes can soak up the ribbons of color unaided. Sometimes, in order to see God dance in full technicolor, we must travel closer to the poles of God, brought there by unavoidable suffering or inescapable love. Once you've experienced God's love in your life, like seeing the wispy Northern Lights in not so northern skies, it is much easier to understand that if you sit still and quiet, then what might look like a cloud is actually light from a sun that still burns all through the night.