Sorry to disappoint any Lord of the Ring fans who were drawn in by the semi-facetious title. You have stumbled upon some personal reflections of a place called Kanchanaburi, Thailand. A place of beautiful mountains, countryside and the sunsets that daily begin around 5:30pm and end around 6:10pm.
I always thought sunsets were swell. And the brilliant orb of saffron almost literally swells over the landscape like it’s ready to burst. All of this seemed pretty bueno to me. But having absorbed similar views over oceans and mountains, they have transformed in my mind more as God’s magestic zenith than the earth’s illuminated swellings that are pretty. St. Augustine in his book Confessions says,
“You called me; you cried aloud to me; you broke my barrier of deafness. You shone upon me; your radiance enveloped me; you put my blindness to flight.”
It talks about in Psalms how the Earth declares and proclaims the glory and reality of God through its very creation. It testifies to something much greater than itself/myself, just as I’m testifying in this blog to the grandeur of the sunsets. Could God have broken down the barrier of deafness in St. Augustine through showing him something visually magnificent, provoking him to speak? When words could not have, nor would they have been heard. Allowing him to ultimately hear God’s call?
Now when I see a sunset, I can’t help but think it parallels God a bit. First, when I see it, I want to be almost enveloped by its radiance because I know it’s something much bigger and more beautiful than myself. Second, I know that when I’m looking at it, many others can see it in all it’s illumination, but that each of us in our separate moments will experience it specific to the moment that it shone upon us.
