Our theme for the month of March is “light.”

I started a new job recently (unfortunately none of these) and have been enjoying the long-awaited opportunity to decorate a cubicle. Eventually, no doubt, the newness of the space will wear off as the drawers fill up with half-legible notes from half-remembered meetings and the desk with eraser shavings and the bulletin boards with postcards I no longer really notice.

But for now, the slate is clean—I have no sedimentary layers of kids’ drawings or brochures calcified onto every surface like my coworkers do, some desks still frozen amber-like in March 2020.

So far I’ve hung up a calendar from a family vacation and a few favorite pictures and postcards. I’d enjoy having a plant or two as well. I’m surrounded by desk on three sides, so there’s room for a whole garden bed. But I’m in the spot furthest from the windows—any plants I bring in will likely only get artificial light.

I had aspirations to really dig into the science of why some light works better for plants than others here but am quickly realizing I’m out of my depth. Without the threat of disappointing a teacher by failing a test, I’m not gonna push myself to really figure much out. Other than that light, for such an everyday thing (necessarily), is an incredible concept.

Everything about light is buck wild. It travels physical distance in waves and has no substance but helps your body make bones. If it goes through glass cut into a certain shape it “splits” into “colors,” only some of which are “visible” to the human eye. And it can feed plants?

Neon is a gas and some materials reflect light while others absorb it and it generates heat and can kill bacteria and develop photographs and make your hair look shiny or burn your skin.

This is beyond me.

And yet bugs make it out of their butts and angler fish from their forelocks and flint from friction.

I’ve been reading Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which is full of wonderful exclamations about the richness and absurdity of nature:

This, then, is the extravagant landscape of the world, given, given with pizzazz, given in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

Moths are drawn to flame, the beacons are lit, the lighthouse defines the boundaries of shore and sea.

I love her description of sunlight:

From an explosion on a nearby star eight minutes ago, the light zips through space, particle-wave, strikes the planet, angles on the continent, and filters through a mesh of land dust: clay bits, tiny wind-born insects, bacteria, shreds of wing and leg, gravel dust, grits of carbon, and dried cells of grass, bark, and leaves…The light crosses the valley, threads through the screen on my open kitchen window, and gilds the painted wall.

And yet some creatures live their whole lives in the dark—not just those stuck in the deep sea where light simply can’t reach, but birds and mammals, here with us, above ground—and only ever open their eyes and poke their heads out at night.

For most of us, light is a metaphor for all that is good. For animals who work the night shift, it travels all those millions of miles only to be barred by an eyelid or a face tucked into a feathered shoulder.

Why are not all things awake for, eager for, the day? It’s like the world is a restaurant with limited seating and someone has to take the off-hour reservations.

Sometimes the lights above my cubicle turn off. They’re motion activated and, on quiet days, no one else is there to make motion. We see the presence of objects only when they reflect light, but here no light is even emitted unless there is a person present. If I cannot see, nothing exists.

Lord, let there be light.

Light gives knowledge. It can be warmth and it can be death—at least for moths and the angler fish’s prey. 

Perhaps the fruit in the Garden
Could have been
A light switch.

Photo credit Kathy Ribbens

Christina Ribbens

Christina Ribbens (’19) graduated with a major in history and minors in studio art and data science. After working in campus ministry for a few years, she’s getting her master’s in public humanities at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. She has a benevolent dependency on tea, is always down for a game of pick-up basketball, and would love to have you over for pancakes sometime.