Where the Light Fell

by Philip Yancey

In search of more solitude, I begin taking daytime hikes in the forest surrounding the four-hundred-acre campus. Following railroad ties until I tire of the smell of creosote, I then detour into the deep woods, where the scent of honeysuckle hangs in the air like a woman’s perfume. The South Carolina landscape brings back memories of my boyhood explorations with a loyal dog at my side. One day, a glimmer of beauty catches my eye: a gold-studded chrysalis nestled among fallen leaves, cast aside for the birth of something even more resplendent. I reach down and hold the split cylinder in my hand. It seems art of the highest order, but for whom—and by whom? I come across a pond and sit there in stillness until the animals forget my presence. After ten minutes a snapping turtle crawls out to sun on a half-submerged log. A muskrat’s nose cuts v-shaped ripples in the pond’s glassy surface. I watch a spotted fawn approach the water, eyes and ears alert, and warily lower its head for a drink. A gangly blue heron, taller than a child, lands gently by the pond’s edge and wades in on stilt legs to stand at stiff attention. Just then I hear a deep bass croak and look up to see a fat green bullfrog, big as a catcher’s mitt, closing his wide-grin mouth. He jumps in the water with a loud splash; I flinch; and all the creatures disappear. They take my breath away, these brushstrokes of nature that happen whether or not any human is there to observe. “I have learnt to love you late, beauty...