Do you remember as a kid staring directly at the sun?
In grade school I built a solar eclipse viewer out of cardboard box. It had a pin prick that would project the eclipse’s shadow inside. The danger during a solar eclipse is that the sun’s diminished brightness gives kids the ability to stare directly at the sun for a long stretch—not realizing that it’s burning their retinas!
Too much light can be blinding. But “too much” light is relative.
Upon first waking, “too much” light can be the thin line of brightness coming from the crack of the bathroom door where your spouse is quietly trying to get ready for work (totally not speaking from experience here). Or “too much” light could just mean the afternoon sun if you are walking out of a weekend matinee.
Of course, we eventually wake up, our eyes eventually adjust, and what was once unbearably bright becomes normal.
What is true of the eyes of our heads is also true of the eyes of our hearts. The more light we behold, the more light we are able to behold. As we gaze at glory, our eyes adjust. Our capacity for beauty grows as we train our eyes on what is good.
Dante captures this reality in Paradiso. Initially blinded by Beatrice’s radiance, his ability to behold her grows the longer he looks at her. The light that ought to blind his eyes actually gives him more sight, with the result, Dante says, that “my gaze more boldness yet assumed.”
We see the opposite illustrated in Tolkien’s Sméagol. Years of dwelling in the shadows and deep pools made him accustomed to the dark. One day, the sun’s dazzling reflection on the water’s surface did such violence to his vision that he retreated forever into a lonely cavern. As we sink into the darkness, our capacity for the light shrinks.
This is the point: If we want to grow in our appreciation of what is good and true and beautiful, we need to spend more time looking at what is good and true and beautiful. If we find classic books boring or do not appreciate art or hate all foods besides chicken nuggets or cannot “get into” Bible reading, we can further retreat into the darkness. Or, we can trust that what feels like blindness is actually the beginning of true sight.
“But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.”
–Proverbs 4:18
A Book on the Blinding Transfiguration!
My friend Patrick Schreiner (Associate Professor of NT at MBTS) has a new book out this week on a very overlooked—and quite blinding!—event in the life of Jesus: the transfiguration.
I had the privilege to work with him on the early drafts of these chapters (he claims in the preface that I trimmed nearly 20k words from the manuscript, which I assure you is an exaggeration), and I had so much fun considering the theological ramifications of the mountaintop experience.
Patrick does a great job helping us to stop and savor the glory of Christ in the setting, signs, and sayings of the transfiguration. Get The Transfiguration of Christ and grow your capacity for “too much” light!