Accidental Stained Glass Musings

In a time full of war, be peace
In a time full of doubt, just believe
Yeah, there ain't that much difference between you and me
In a time full of war, be peace
In a world full of hate, be a light
When you do somebody wrong, make it right
Don't hide in the dark, you were born to shine
In a world full of hate, be a light
(La-la-la, la, la, la, la)


It was morning, and I was playing with the ice from the night before. The water did not want to dump out of the cat's icy water bowl from the front porch. It had made one of those suctions that is nearly impossible to break, but eventually - glurp glurp glurp - out it came.

My tiny crystals inside the ice were shattered, I could tell it, but as I poured the water out, all of the broken pieces of shiny stuff inside glommed onto the crystals at the edges. It was an ice dam, sure and simple. Was my ice story ruined? Maybe. Maybe not.

I looked at the ice again, and I put my colored beads and my white headlamp beneath it. The colors were odd. The shapes were strange. It wasn't what I wanted, maybe, but it was beautiful. I wasn't even sure what I was seeing. A few more shots from a few different angles, and I realized what it looked like to me: stained glass, made of ice!

All of those broken pieces had made something new and beautiful, unexpectedly throwing me back to the Middle Ages. There I stood, in my own bathroom in the dark, of all the most unholy places you could think of, shining in the light of my own accidental stained glass windows.

Now, here is a thing I have never told you. When I was a child, I discovered stained glass windows. They let the light in in such a glorious way. I thought - when I grow up, I want to be a stained glass window! I know, such a silly little girl. So here we are, years and years later:  if I can't be one, at least I can help make one. Stained glass windows, that is!

I wondered who invented stained glass, and so I looked it up. The Romans and Egyptians were very skilled at making colorful beads. So it's likely the origin is somewhere back there. 

Romans had stained glass in the first century, but it wasn't widely used until the seventh century. Northumbria in the UK had colored glass in monasteries in the seventh century. In the tenth century, Germany and France had church windows that depicted biblical scenes.

But then I stumbled upon stories about a dude named Abbot Suger, at Saint Denis, in France. He was known as the Father of Stained Glass. He believed that colored glass windows allowed light to pour inside in a way that conveyed God's presence.

I wish I could walk through time and have a lovely conversation with Abbot Suger. I believe that he and I would find that we have some things in common. For me, God lives inside the light, as well as in many other places. We live in dark times. Heaven knows, the world needs more light.

If you can't find some, MAKE SOME. SHARE SOME.
That is all from here!

My soundtrack song is Thomas Rhett, with Reba McEntire and Chris Tomlin, with Be a Light. Some of its lyrics appear above and below.

Yeah, it's hard to live in color, when you just see black and white
In a world full of hate, be a light