Clear Light of Day (27 page)

She wondered, “What have I done?” but at the same time registered with mild surprise her lack of dread or regret or apprehension. Her place in the institution of the church with its bureaucracy and liturgy and petty feuds failed to fix her attention. Without noticing the shift, as she looked out over the patient tides of the ocean waves, her mind drifted, and she began to think about silver. Silver had been tarnished in the narrow world of tradition that shuts out life, reduced to thirty coins that betrayed a man to death. But even silver, the currency of human greed, had kept its beauty if she remembered to open her vision to the living earth.

The silver of the clouds in this overcast day, underlit by a barred wash of rose as afternoon drew toward evening. The muscular rippling of the sea, reflecting the brightness of the sky like pewter, silvery bright along the paths of the light. The silver, clear light of day; not the squinting glare of cloudless midsummer, but this cool and lucid dove-light. She thought of Jabez's hair, as the sunlight caught it, the faintest suggestion of auburn warming its stranded silver fall—youth's last allusion.

Jabez … the look in his eyes. Observant. Perceptive. Shy sometimes, bright glances other times. Fleetingly, in the midnight garden, the utter longing of his love. Warm in laughter. The downward gaze of controlled annoyance when Ember needled him to exasperation. Quiet gaze, intelligent, focused on a piece of machinery. Shafts she had glimpsed, steep drops to remembered pain; dizzy, acute, frightening. Jabez, his eyes dark and deep in the shadow and moonlight, drawing her to himself, gentle.

She had made her choice, and there were no regrets.

Jabez had little or nothing to offer her but himself and the willingness to share with her everything he had. To take this path, considered prosaically, was to embrace poverty and insecurity.

But Jabez, with his humble trust in the power of simplicity, gave her an obscure sense of safety; as though his cottage, hedged about with its fragrant herbs and ancient apple trees, was a sanctuary where she could be absolutely safe; the place, she realized, where she had at last found peace.

And she knew that she wanted to be there with him more than anything. Having found her way there, if she could believe the goodness in life enough to stay, it would be a shelter and a resting place. Friendship, honesty, belonging; a fireside, a home, simplicity, and space. Having found her way there, it was too precious to let go. She had made her choice as, in the unfolding months of deepening friendship, she had let all that it meant lodge inside her and become a deep, upwelling, crystal source of hope. It was like a church to her; like the little church she had glimpsed in a field from the train so long ago. A place of refuge, a way of life offering space to be and time to think, a chance to feel with her fingers the dusty hem of Christ's homespun robe, and find the daily walking meditation of the barefoot way of prayer.

… a little more …

When a delightful concert comes to an end,

the orchestra might offer an encore.

When a fine meal comes to an end,

it's always nice to savor a bit of dessert.

When a great story comes to an end,

we think you may want to linger.

And so, we offer ...

AfterWords—
just a little something more after you

have finished a David C. Cook novel.

We invite you to stay awhile in the story.

Thanks for reading!

Turn the page for ...

• Discussion Questions

• A Conversation with Penelope Wilcock

Discussion Questions

At the beginning of the novel, Esme reads words she had written years ago about a country church she saw through a train window. What do you think this church represents to her?

What contributes to Esme's restlessness at the beginning of the novel? How does she begin to move past this feeling?

After Esme's first husband leaves, she throws herself into her work. How do you see this affecting her emotionally and spiritually?

Esme is immediately fascinated by Jabez. Why do you think she finds him so intriguing?

Esme fears what people will think of her if they find out that she feels unable to pray. Do you think pretense is more or less apparent in ministry than other vocations? Why or why not?

Jabez feels the church's prayers for his wife, Maeve, were filled with unreality. What do you think he means by this?

Esme faces the dilemma of choosing fulfillment through professional success or through relationship. Why do you think she chooses not to move?

A Conversation with
Penelope Wilcock

The book opens with a quotation from
Grey Owl:
“Down the avenue of trees I can see a spot of sunlight. I'm trying so hard to get there.” How does this image relate to Jabez and Esme's spiritual journey?

At the point at which the story opens, Esme is living with an unacknowledged numbness, damage from the loneliness of her role as a minister, from the bereavement of her failed marriage, and from her sense of unfulfillment in terms of personal faith. Jabez is frozen at a place of loneliness and grief after the death of his wife, and is coping, but only just. Though he has a deep personal faith, he finds the answers and attitudes he meets in church unsatisfactory. Yet each of them has an instinct to reach for something that makes sense of life; that brings wholeness, healing, and fulfillment. To reach the place of openly admitted love and need of each other that they are at by the end of the book is a matter of struggle for each of them, permitting vulnerability, risking much. It is the end of one journey toward warmth and light but, as always in life, will be the beginning of another.

The Clear Light of Day
is about insight. How do you see this theme illustrated in the teachings of Jesus?

Of the four evangelists, Mark and John focus particularly on this theme. Mark's gospel has a particular teaching structure, seeking to awaken the minds of his readers to the foundational role of suffering in the call of the Messiah. Mark, in his tiny prologue states, “Here begins the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God,” and what unfolds in the following chapters is an invitation to insight, to understand who Jesus is and what he came to do.

The first chapters are full of questions: “Who is this that even the wind and sea obey him? Who is this who can forgive sins? Who is this who can heal the sick and cast out demons?” etc. Then Jesus asks his disciples, “And you—who do you say I am?” (“I am” of course is the name of God.) This question, and Peter's consequent confession of faith, follows on the heels of the healing of the blind man. And Peter is commended by Jesus for his faith, but then sharply rebuked (“Get behind me, Satan”) for remonstrating with Jesus about the necessity of Christ's suffering and death.

There then follows a block of teaching about the crucial necessity for Jesus to suffer and die, and in the middle of this block of teaching, at the midpoint of the gospel, comes the Mount of Transfiguration where Jesus is revealed in glory for who he is. At the end of the teaching on suffering comes the healing of blind Bartimaeus, one whose sight is instantly restored—and then the Passion narrative begins to roll, culminating in the declaration of faith by the unnamed outsider, the Roman centurion—“Surely this man was the Son of God” (bringing us back full circle to the prologue). Thus one can see, the whole gospel is about attaining insight into who Jesus is (the Son of God) and what that means (accepting the role of Suffering Servant). The central teaching block about suffering, in the middle of which Jesus blazes forth in transfigured glory, flanked as it is by the two healings of blind men, the first representing Peter who saw but not properly, the second representing the disciple who follows in the way of the cross (Bartimaeus is described as following Jesus “in the Way” after his healing), is all about revelation and insight; hence the healing of blindness being the miracle chosen.

In John's gospel, the presence of Christ is portrayed as light moving through a dark world. From the prologue, which speaks of light present but not recognized, not understood, but never extinguished, through the miracles that John calls “signs” (pointing the way to us or helping us understand), and through the teachings that speak of Jesus as light and exhorting the faithful to work while the light is with them for the dark times will come, light and vision are central themes. This culminates in the story of the resurrection morning (John 20:1–10), where Peter and the beloved disciple run to the garden tomb. The English word “saw” occurs three times in this story, but each time it means something different in the Greek. First, the beloved disciple “sees” (glimpses, catches sight of) the grave clothes, but does not go in. Then Peter goes in, and he “sees” (examines, scrutinizes) the grave clothes and the head-cloth, then the beloved disciple also goes in, and he “sees” (catches on, gets it, understands) and believes. So it's about entering in, and about the movement of light and dark: In the darkness of the tomb, the light of faith and insight awaits them; as they enter the darkness, the light enters them.

The Gospels are wonderful documents, and insight is a central theme in the Gospels: The teaching of Jesus fits into that overall communication, teaching who he was, what he came for, and the cosmic spiritual shift effected by his redeeming death on the cross.

The Clear Light of Day
follows the quest of an ordained minister's personal search for inner peace. How does Esme begin to find her way out of formality and into a natural expression of her faith?

The
Clear Light of Day
is intended as the first book of a trilogy. In this book, Jabez and Ember each have quite a clear and settled outlook on life, but Esme is reaching for something that feels more real to her than what she currently has. Right at the end of the book, because of the healing that comes about in her through being loved, and because of the glimpses she is reaching of a vision of simplicity, Esme comes to a position of hope that her uncertainties and restlessness may begin to resolve. I am working at present on the second book of the trilogy,
The Light Returning,
which will explore the relationship between the spiritual and the physical, and the natural rhythms of the seasons with the teaching of the Christian faith.

Like Esme you have served as a minister in the Methodist church. Is
The Clear Light of Day
in any way autobiographical?

I think maybe all novels must be a little autobiographical. I have been pleased to find that readers of
The Clear Light of Day
who are Methodist members, in the different Methodist circuits where I had worked, all thought it was their circuit I was writing about. So I guess there must be something true to life there. But Esme is not me, though I am familiar with the dilemmas and stresses of her working week.

The novel seems to suggest that spirituality is expressed in the daily rhythm of life. How does this view of spirituality differ from one that creates a false dichotomy between the secular and the sacred?

On British television recently, we saw a program called
God Is Green
, which threw a challenge to all the mainstream religions, especially to those in leadership, regarding their silence about the serious issues of climate change and global warming that face us all. The problem for church leaders, of course, is they are so busy doing all that must be done in service of the organization, there is no way they have the leisure for the detailed thinking and transformation that such challenges as climate change and global warming require. In order to discover and exercise vision, we have to disentangle from the treadmill of maintaining the status quo, and take time and space to be with the silence of what is real, like Jesus going into the desert. I believe that spirituality is holistic and expresses itself essentially in attitude and in choice. However holy we feel, however fervently we praise God, if the small daily choices we make don't celebrate the Creator in his creation, or serve the Redeemer in loving his lost sheep, or reverence the mystery and wonder that encounters us in the ordinary moments of life, then we haven't grasped the meaning of righteousness.

As a pastor, I found this especially challenging. I once heard a member of one of my congregations say with appreciation and approval, regarding an act of worship led by a visiting preacher, “We told her what we wanted, and that's exactly what she did.” My difficulty was always that fulfilling the expectations and established traditions of my congregations never allowed me to demonstrate and develop my own sense of call and vision, which saw things differently.

At the present time, I am working out a new form of expression for my ministry and am not currently the pastor of a congregation. I believe that the threshold of all spiritual practice is simplicity. Without simplicity, the spiritual path can't even get started. I am establishing a spiritual daily path that practices the presence of God in the detail of everyday life. I preach and teach about faith, life, spirituality, and practice healing, craft liturgy and ceremony, conduct retreats, and write about the way of faith. Other than that I live very, very quietly, eating simple food mindfully prepared, chosen with thought to honor the Creator in his creation. I consciously create beauty, and do not engage in fast and worldly pursuits. I focus on modesty and reverence, on quietness and prayerfulness. I think about the links and consequences that my actions and choices set in motion—the journey that will be made by the coins I spend in purchases I make: Who will they enrich? Will they bless my neighborhood community by becoming part of the trade network of family businesses, or impoverish it by being taken away for the pockets of corporate giants and their shareholders? The food I eat: Will it make me calm and peaceable, healthy and alert for service and positive relationship—or will it make me nervy, tired, aggressive, and ill, one who has to be served rather than serving?

I believe, along with so many other people of faith, that God speaks through the joy and immediacy of creation. So I touch the presence of God in the birds in my garden and in the ancient stone of the pillars in the parish church and in the flowing of rivers, clouds driven by the wind, the currents of the sea.

And most of all, the light—ordinary light; sunlight, firelight, starlight, the light that shines out of all living beings—light is a carrier of mystery, and acts as a parable for me, of the Christlight, of the light that betokens the presence of the living God, of the light that is shining in a person when they wake up, when faith is born.