Do you ever go out in the mornings to the woods, or the park, for a hike, a walk, and notice the light of the sun setting the leaves of trees aglow? I do. Maybe, next time you go out, if you don’t already notice, you’ll notice. It’s quite glorious.

I wrote a note about this phenomenon once (probably within the past year), in the back of my Gospel of Luke scripture journal:

I stumbled across this note about a month ago – when I was working on writing the previous sonnet – about the sunrise/sunset – and told myself that THAT was what my next sonnet would be about. And so, I’ve been working on it since after I published my last sonnet. (That’s how it’s been going since I’ve started writing these poems. As I am in the middle of writing the one I’m writing, I’ll get an idea for another one and I tell myself I’ll write it next. It was tough to do that last time… I was teetering on writing the sunrise/set one or writing this tree leaves in the sunlight one. But, I told myself I would NOT give up on the sunrise/set one and that I would keep my word and go all the way with it and get it done. And I sure am glad I did.)

This poem here, I thought I would get it done within a week. But, it’s just not going that way these days as school has started back up. It’s been draining to wake up super early in the mornings in order to get to work by 6:40 – and also many times preparing a bit of something for the kids for breakfast before I go. And then, getting home and having to take care of the kids in one way or another (thank God my dear husband often helps with this), and also taking care of myself with a bit of exercise and reading. It all leaves little energy for writing.

But alas, I am happy with the little writing that I do get done, and I guess it’s good that these poems are taking two weeks to write because it gives time for ideas to churn. For this sonnet, the ideas that have been churning have been about identity. I read a couple substack pieces about identity earlier this week, and one of them asked readers at the end if they had suggestions of resources that have helped them to know themselves better. I imagined people would think about the various personality tests and scores that are so popular these days. And while I do appreciate those and think that they are helpful to a degree, I have always found them lacking and I tend to not declare out that I am an Enneagram 9 or an MBTI INTJ, or whatever. The truth is for me, is that I am a changing human being, and these labels cannot define me or tell others precisely about me.

Honestly, I have found my truest identity and self in the light of the Holy Spirit living within me, and as I continue to cling to Christ and ask God to contiually fill me with his Spirit, that is when I have been delivered in my mind of confusion and sinful desires, and I have accepted who and what God has made me to be. When I cling to Christ living within me, and I submit to his processes of healing and change, I have become more fully who he created me to be, and can become who he wants me to be in the future.

A neon-green fire glows in trees’ leaves.
  It speaks to me as bush spoke to Moses.
  “I am full of life, and can’t be emptied!”
  it exclaims to me in a voice robust.
I am taken aback and stunned frozen
  in awe at the clarity of color.
  I take my cue and mimic tree’s poses,
  stretch limbs wide open, soak up sun’s grandeur

In this light my identity is sure.
  (Personality scores keep me wanting.)
  The Spirit living within makes me pure
  and my mind is set free from sin’s taunting.
In the light I glow, I am clearly seen.
  Colors come out strong. I am fully me.