Gathering the Gleanings: Reflections on Life in the Ministry

A rare thing occurred in many parts of the world over the past weekend. Something I’d seen a number of times as a child and young person. The beautiful colors in the sky known as Aurora Borealis – more commonly to me as the Northern Lights.

I remember sitting at the vespers site on South Cooking Lake at Camp Van-Es (the Canadian District of the Moravian Church Camp) and occasionally seeing the sky light up in slight bits of green and blue…God’s beautiful creation. Then the night, during the summer of my senior year of university. I was driving home from my childhood church, Bruderheim Moravian, to my home in Fort Saskatchewan and the sky was glorious. Now let me be clear there were NO lights there because it was in the middle of NOWHERE in the more Northern part of Alberta. My breath was taken away. I’ll never forget any of those times

I thought the days of seeing these lights dance across the sky were over when I moved to the United States. Now fast forward to last Friday. I was lying in bed and saw someone post a picture in the Ardmore FACEBOOK group of a picture on Friday. We quickly thought it was not for real. However, I was determined to see for myself, so I flew to the driveway. Nope nothing. Out came my husband and we saw hint of pink yet we’re sure it was a reflection.

So back to bed we went. I kept wondering well what if…..Joe kept seeing people’s posts with pictures and said this is really happening. I kept on wondering could I really really see this childhood beauty again? I think Joe decided he would take me out for a bit to keep me from wondering aloud. We drove to a few dim places in Winston and places where people had posted pictures from – nope no luck.

I was sad. Joe says well they are saying maybe tomorrow. So my excitement built. Saturday after dinner and as it was getting dark we loaded into Joe’s Mom’s car and went chasing them down. We drove all the way to Virginia. I saw some slight discoloring in the sky. Having learnt that it’s best seen through camera. I took pictures with my phone – okay so some color, nothing like the pictures I saw the night before on Facebook.

Not in anyway spectacular enough – and it was a Saturday night and preaching had to happen the next morning, for two preachers So back to North Carolina we came.

Joe does some reading and proclaims – “they say tomorrow night will likely be better”. Awesome I thought this is definitely it!

So we decided driving up to the Blue Ridge Parkway was our best bet, to one of the overlooks. Guess what? The Parkway was closed. So we turned around and went to a previous overlook. We waited and waited – and of course met some new friends. Much to my disappointment no dancing beautiful lights in the sky. However, learning more about my iPhone camera I was able to take my very own picture of the most famous constellation:

Well chasing the childhood memory didn’t happen in the way I wanted. I wanted Joe to see this glorious display. I did get to remember how amazed and awestruck I was as a child. That awe didn’t come often so this past weekend my mind was filled with the memory. I guess in a way, I did get to share it with Joe because of the tone of my voice and excitement in my being to see them. And who would do all that crazy driving chasing a childhood memory – a husband who loves his wife!

Its’s never too late I guess to find positive memories, as rare as they might be. Remember them with child like awe and be grateful for those glimpses and glimmers. Not to forget there are ways to share them with others through our tone of voice and utter excitement of even the slightest of possibility of experiencing it again.

I hope one day my eyes will see those colors dance in the sky, until then, I’m grateful for the opportunity at all. Rest assured if I ever have the opportunity to see them with my eyes again – I’ll be out there chasing them!