The scent of light

As soon as the clock radio went off, I was up and about. The music playing was bossa nova, but in my head I was humming “Morning Has Broken,” an old Gaelic melody used as hymn in the Morning Prayer for Wednesday, Week 1, of the Liturgy of the Hours.

Soft light filtered through the Roman blind. I could hear the crowing of the neighbors’ roosters and the call of the little birds that had packed the trees in the garden. I said a prayer – the Morning Offering – put on togs and left the bedroom for a walk.

The help who arrived earlier had left the backdoor ajar, allowing a sliver of light to enter and clip a part of the kitchen floor. I stepped outside.

The rose bushes below the patio greeted me with their white flowers. On closer look, I noticed that they were actually pale yellow with a pink tinge. They could be tea roses, I thought, vowing to smell them in a while to check if their scent resembled that of tea.

But it was the light that claimed my attention. It seemed to have the same color as the roses, which, despite their being in a secluded corner, had the clarity they would have under the noonday sun. This despite the fact that it was not yet an hour after darkness. Still there was a softness to the light, an other-worldly glow.

In fact, when I scanned the east, the sun was not yet out. I knew, however, that it was even now climbing towards the line between the earth and sky.

“Let there be light,” God said, and there was light on the first day. Genesis tells us that it was on the fourth day when God created the sun, moon and stars. What then was the light that came before that, in the very beginning?

There is a reference to something like it in Isaiah 30:26 – “The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven times greater, like the light of seven days…”

The phrase “the light of seven days” suggests the primordial light, the light that poured into the world on the first day, the light of Paradise that Adam and Eve lost when they savored the forbidden fruit.

Isaiah is describing the world in the messianic era “when Yahweh binds up the wounds of his people…”  (This would come about through the sufferings of the Christ –   “By his wounds we are healed,” Isaiah says.)

In the prologue to his Gospel, John identifies the light that was coming into the world – “the true Light that enlightens everyone” – with Christ.

If already there were the sun, moon and stars, the light that John says was coming into the world must have been of the same kind as, if not itself, the primordial light, the light that came on the first day, before God created the sun, moon and stars. Matthew says that on the high mountain to which Jesus took Peter, James and John, Jesus’ face shone like the sun and his clothes became bright as light. I could take a cue from Isaiah, and add that the light of Jesus was seven times greater than the light of the sun.

Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, must have had an inkling of this. When he heard that Jesus was passing by, he began shouting – “Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me!” – yelling all the more when people told him to shut up.

Jesus called for Bartimaeus and asked what he wanted Jesus to do for him. Bartimaeus said, “Master, let me see again!”

We know that, after gaining back his sight, Bartimaeus followed Jesus. He could just have stayed in Jericho, and with his new eyes know the place as though for the first time. But Jericho offered only the sights presented by the sun or moon. And Bartimaeus had set eyes on the primordial light, and in his heart it was seven times greater than the sun.

Bartimaeus might as well have said, “Jesus, let me see you!” I should have said this, too, when I held my face next to a white rose, hoping to get a whiff of the scent of light.