On Sunsets and Life and Death

When I was a little girl, I started talking with God, and we simply never stopped. I’m not sure when our conversation began, and I’m not really sure that it matters. Sometimes, many times, I’m a terrible listener, and I just want God to sit still and hear my problems, then I yell at Him for not speaking up. But sometimes, far too few times, I stop talking and hear what He has to say. Those are the golden times. Occasionally His voice stings the ears of my heart and singes the skin of my soul. More often, though, His voice is soft, not a whisper, much stronger than that, but still and quiet and full of love. It squeezes my heart and lights the warmest of candles in my soul.

I suppose I’ve seen sunsets all my life, but it took me nearly twenty years to notice them.  See, I was hurt just months before my twentieth birthday. My heart got all crushed up, and I was stuck trying to uncrinkle the mess. I started aching then and needing to hear the soft part of God more than ever before. I began walking at dusk, going to where the trees begin to thin and some farmer’s crop stretches out into the sky, and watching the sun dip further and further down until it slipped from my sight. I’m not sure how or why or when, but suddenly sunsets became important to me. They soothed my soul like lotion on wintry hands, and I started listening to God again as I watched day and night meet in a soft, sweet farewell.

I started seeking sunsets because I loved their beauty. There is something utterly magical about the final bow of a day. In those final few moments when the sun inches closer and closer to the horizon, time simply stands still. Slowly, ever so slowly, the sky acknowledges its imminent departure with the warmest of paints, colors lazily spreading out and engulfing clouds and embracing the very air itself. The sun is in no hurry. It calmly makes its exit with the grace and elegance of an actress taking one final curtain call.  And then, seemingly suddenly, the sun is gone, and something amazing happens: the light remains. The most beautiful of colors stream across the sky after the sun has dipped out of sight. The very air itself takes on the glow of the passing day. The sun is not forgotten; it cannot be, for its luminosity lingers.

I have a theory. It isn’t impressive, and I doubt it’s very novel. In fact, I’m nearly certain some philosopher has said it before in language much more eloquent with thoughts far loftier than mine. My theory is this: life is a series of births and deaths.

I think I first explored this theory the night I met a brand-new-born baby. My high school small group drove an hour to visit our leader just after she delivered her third baby girl, Ellie. She was small and red and squirmy and so very, very fresh. They asked if I wanted to hold her, but I refused. I was so in awe. This little baby was perfect. She had never seen pain or shame or suffering. That very same night, we got a phone call. A man in our community, an upstanding, prominent citizen, killed himself. All I could think of when I heard of his death was tiny little Ellie, all new and pure, just starting this thing we call life.

Other things die, too. Not just people. On my way to move into college my freshman year, I made a detour to drive past my high school, a place that had been very tough for me. As I passed, I gave one final pat to the dirt atop the grave I had dug for those awkward, painful years. I was happy to bury that ugliness. But sometimes lovely things die. That time my heart got hurt, a lot of really beautiful things died, and it’s hard to remember the birth part of that theory of mine when dead things start piling up in all the corners.

When I first started watching sunsets, my heart was a pitiful, bloody mess. I ached and ached from all those deaths without funerals. It’s so very hard for me to bury something I can’t touch. To me, death was ugly and mean. But when I saw the sun set, I saw a different sort of death. I began loving sunsets because they made death beautiful. It was soft and warm and kind. It ached a little, of course. After all, the day was gone, never to return. But there’s a little bit of peace in saying a final goodbye. And in that fading light, there was hope.

You see, the sun rises, too. Every single day. Sometimes I can’t see it. I seldom wake up early enough to watch it peek over the horizon, and occasionally blustery clouds angrily refuse admittance to its rays. But it’s there. It always is. It’s kind of a promise. Each time the sun sets, I know that it will rise again. There are still days when the sun sinks from the sky while I watch with tears choking up in my throat. There are still times that I cry aloud, “Don’t go.” But it’s then, in those final, golden hours, when the earth ceases with its revolutions and time hangs like a fisherman’s lure cast through the air, that God speaks again. And in His quiet, strong voice, He reminds. Tomorrow, there will be light. Tomorrow, there will be warmth. And tomorrow, a day, new and fresh, will arrive. I simply have to make it through the night.