In July of 1994, one month before I turned twenty-one, I found myself on a biplane flying above the Brooks Range mountains of Alaska. The Brooks Range is estimated to be one hundred and twenty-six million years old and was formed when Alaska was being subducted beneath oceanic crust. This was the gift my dad gave me for my twenty-first birthday. 

The plan was to land the plane by the Hula-Hula River and then float toward the Beaufort Sea. The Hula-Hula River is an arctic river above sixty-nine degrees north latitude with over eighty miles of navigable water. Travelers should be wary, according to Alaska. org. “Solid planning is required to cover all the bases of getting to and from the river”. This trip usually takes ten days to complete. We set aside fourteen days to float on the river and then additional time to hike, sightsee and rest.

At age twenty I had just finished my fourth year in college where I was a student of social work. The focus of my studies was on the therapeutic support of those who experienced violent crime. My field placement was at The Sexual Assault Crisis Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. So, while this trip may not have been the typical gift for a nascent twenty-one-year-old woman, it was a welcomed escape from the gravity of working day in and day out in a world that can burden a person’s Spirit.

When the plane landed it was sixty degrees in the Tundra. We unloaded our gear and set up camp. Now it was news to me that the sun does not set in the Tundra in mid-July. Instead, the sun slinks down to the edge of the horizon and then withdraws again like a reluctant lover’s kiss. The resulting lack of darkness is equally dissatisfying. 

In the morning as I stepped out of the tent to begin the ritual of coffee prep, I discovered that overnight the low clouds and a surprise snowstorm had been knitted into a white blanket that gently covered the valley in which we slept. As I walked five hundred feet to the Hula-Hula river’s edge, I saw that the flow of water had ceased due to the freezing temperatures. Suddenly our “solid plan” to travel the eighty miles of the river’s water to reach the Beaufort Sea in nine days had become meaningless scribble on a black-lined piece of yellow paper. For the next fourteen days my dad and I were grounded in the middle of the Tundra with no way to communicate and a limited food supply. 

As we waited in hopeful anticipation of being rescued, we took a lot of walks. As we walked, we sang loudly and clapped our hands to ward off the grizzle bears fishing on the river’s edge. We read and wrote in our journals. We grew comfortable in the silence and the cold. There was no option other than to accept the river’s unwillingness to flow. 

In that acceptance I discovered a peace that surpassed understanding. The weight of fear gave way to a consciousness of connection, to one another, to nature, and to God. 

On day fourteen we heard the plane’s propellers long before the plane emerged into sight. The sound was clear, but I didn’t trust it. Yet the plane descended with confidence. Small and steady, it greeted the gravel path cut out of the valley’s plain and opened its arms to receive us. After loading our gear onto the plane, my dad and I, with the help of a brave pilot, resisted gravity and ascended into the air. Suddenly, in midflight we found ourselves drenched in a full-circle rainbow. The multicolored light radiated from the plane in all directions and seemed to expand infinitely around us. 

This particular rainbow is referred to as a Glory. A Glory is a rare atmospheric phenomenon. A Glory is created in backscattered light formed from water droplets, which produce a fog or mist, and then a set of rings of colored light which surround the shadow of the observer. To see a Glory a person must be positioned at a high vantage point above the clouds with the sun at their back. The light of the Glory is then received by the observer when it is reflected off their shadow. And when received the light transforms what the eyes perceive. 

When I flew through that Glory light, nothing changed aside from my perception. Suddenly I saw clearly that there was so much more to living than being safe or protecting myself from the world. In that moment I was gifted with a wide sense of mystery and awe that lifted me above my anxiety and worries. The trip to the Tundra, while not what we had expected, was all miraculously worth it. In the light of Glory I saw that the risk of living wild and free, of being vulnerable and surrendering to reality, made way for transformation.

When light hits an object one of three things happens. Either the object reflects the light, transmits the light, or absorbs the light changing it to energy. In that moment on the plane, I absorbed the light of Glory, and the light transformed the energy I carried within. Where I had been grounded by fear, I was now liberated by the grace of Glory. Light has the power to transform. The Glory of the True Light has the power to elevate us above the gravity of our fears. 

Thirty years since that transformative trip to the Tundra, and eight years since my dad’s death, I am living as a mother and an Episcopal priest. The weight of burdens can still hold me down at times. But what I now know to be true is that there are only two ways to receive Glory, and either way requires us to resist the gravity of our burdens. To experience Glory, we must go to the highest mountains, or we must fly.