Sharon R. Chace - Images of Light: Ascent to Trust in Triumph

When Rev. James Fletcher, who was Interim Pastor of the First Congregational Church in Rockport, Massachusetts, asked me to design what was originally planned as an Advent program, I did not think that I could do it. My muscles were tense. My mind was tepid. I had thoughts and tentative outlines but my heart was not upbeat.

After a few anxious nights, a dream that took me two days to understand set my mind on fire. Focus was a gift from God working through my subconscious. In this dream I was in our church in Rockport and had trouble visually focusing on the hymn printed on golden-yellow paper as a bulletin insert. No idea what hymn! However the golden-yellow showed up in many images that I selected for this course. One woman, who took my course on which this book is based, asked if I chose the pictures because of the golden yellow. No. I selected the paintings because of the light that I saw in them. I did not notice the yellow-gold in the images until well into the writing of this book. Happiness of yellow is a thread woven through these essays.

Finally in my dream I could clearly see the words on the last verse. Then the cross over the altar disappeared. In its place there was a recessed window with a view of Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire. The mountain was back-lit in a luminous, light blue, and bathed in green and coral. Mountain images have always been important to me. Mountains in the east and in the west readily evoke Psalm 121. In the first two verses the Psalmist asks where his help comes from and then answers his own question by concluding that his help comes from the Lord who is the maker of heaven and earth.

I lift up my eyes to the hills

from where will my help come?

My help comes from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth. Ps 121:12

This psalm is a song of trust. It is also a psalm of ascent in a group of fifteen ascent psalms (120134). The psalmist proclaims confidence in Gods continual care through night and day. Pilgrims on their way, ascending the hills to Jerusalem and to the Temple, trusted these words of assurance that they would not be done in by robbers. These robbers were like those who tortured the man found by the Good Samaritan in Lukes gospel. In this psalm God the Keeper and the Good Samaritan are kin. Therefore there is an especially bright spark of divine love in people who are good Samaritans. People can be good Samaritans offering company and protection to one another on the ascent to trust in the triumph of good over evil.

The theme of life as a mountainous journey is deep in the Puritan soul ever since John Bunyan wrote his classic The Pilgrims Progress, which is an undercurrent in the flow of this book. There are many hills to climb in a lifetime. The ascent to trust is only one trek, yet it underlies all quests. Trust is a multi-faceted diamond of faith in God, self-assurance, confidence in trustworthy neighbors and belief in human possibilities for goodness. You, my readers, have your own private dreams and mountains. Like Bunyan you can trust in shoes and prayers on your ascent to trust in transcendent goodness and to your personal goal. When people love God and care about others, personal goals are woven into hope for the ultimate triumph of the reign of love and light.