When I Open the Kitchen Curtains, I So Enjoy Watching the Golden Sunlight Play upon the Hills – Sunday, April 26, 2026

***

In the morning, but especially on Sunday, when I open the kitchen curtains, I so enjoy watching the golden sunlight play upon and bathe the hills to the north of us in a vibrant gilded hue as the sun rises above the mountains to the east of us.

Dawn, the first appearance of light, had already occurred for us almost an hour before as the sun behind the San Gabriel Mountains – which stand guard over the San Fernando Valley to the east – had already lit the sky, and day had already come upon the Valley.  But when the first sliver of sun barely rises above the mountains, a brilliant blinding gold streaks across the land with the speed of light – instantaneous to our eyes and lives – flooding the land with the truest and purest of gold – the sunlight – that had once in the past graced the Valley into a living, giving carpet of citrus, and olives, walnut groves, and wheat.

And on many Sundays, when I saw the golden light gild the much lower hills to the north of us, I would run outside to take a photo with the camera of my phone as the beauty was breathtaking. But then, once I was back inside, I would behold an even more astounding view than the frame before and rush out to the front again and snap another photo, and so on multiple times – taking the photos so I could pick the best to send out to my adult grandchildren with their weekly Sunday message.

But just today, after years of enjoying and being staggered by the brilliance of this display, I realized that this Sunday, the Lord’s intention of the beauty unfolding before me, was something very different than to just rush about taking multiple photos. For the dazzling living light upon the hills that I saw this day, was given to me to still and quiet my heart and mind, and instead of always feeling a vague need to hold on to the loveliness before me lest I lose it, what came was a deepening knowledge of His beauty and peace and care for me, and the world. And this peace lifted from my heart a seemingly ever-present sense of sorrow when something that was quietly lovely, or something I immediately cherished, was passing or fading from my life.

For within my mind – and my life – many times it seemed there slumbered the life-stealing sure expectation that beauty, and those instantly treasured living moments of life – regardless of how tightly I held on to them – would ebb and vanish from my heart. And that expectation of pain, joined with the always ensuing disappointment that the good I wanted and always seemed to need, would always leave me empty and alone – a disappointment as from a perpetual exhausting struggle to stop the sun from setting. 

But now, unexpected and deep, instead of sadness and loss, I was stilled, hushed quiet, by the living beauty of the bright and golden sunlight. And then, as if for the first time ever, I beheld the parade of the shadows of the clouds, playing upon the ageless small green roundings and upturns of the low hills, the sunlight pouring through the caravan of white and darker clouds slowly moving against the purest blue of the sky, which now also seemed to shine in the bright clean light of the still early morning.

The beauty upon the hills was a gift of stillness, and peace, and being now entirely within the living, moving moment – a now in linear time, every moment, every nanosecond, enjoyed, expressed, and lived as Now.

And the Now – a peace beyond comprehension, a stillness profound, its focus and limit the distance of the everlasting horizon of our life, its depth, the farthest reaches of our soul, and its substance, that of eternity and God.

This is the Now in which we will live, but which even now enriches and forms us with the blessing of its touch – a touch gifted and poured upon us when we open our hearts and minds to the grace and incomprehensible love of the eternal Creator God of heaven and Earth, and a touch which allows us to experience the glorious humility of understanding, knowing, and truly being who and what we are before Him.

***

To View all posts in The Quiet Light of Sunday Morning & Other Meditations & Thoughts, please use the link below

The Quiet Light of Sunday Morning & Other Meditations & Thoughts

To view all posts in the Moments of Seeing & Occasional Pieces, please use the link below.

Moments of Seeing & Occasional Pieces – Writing In The Shade Of Trees

***