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09/06/2025

Today’s blog

Lynn Murphy Mark

Coruscation

From my “Word Daily” app, this word means a flash, or sparkle, of light. Not sure why it caught my attention. Maybe because I got a very early sparkly message from Ted and Sarah, who, as I write, are winging their way back to Los Angeles from a week in Vienna. The occasion was a few lovely days in that great city before Ted presented a paper at a philosophy conference. 

The sparkle came from Sarah’s message that they were at the airport waiting to board, but especially that Ted’s presentation went very very well and he received many compliments on his work. I know that he was feeling anxious about the whole thing, but he needn’t have been. Ted’s teaching and public speaking have been rewarded by his students’ reviews of his excellence as a teacher. He loves to teach, he loves his field, and it shows.

It occurs to me that life offers many flashy moments if we are present to them. And those moments are not necessarily monumental. For example, every time I look in my mailbox at work and see a postal envelope with a red border I know that someone in my caseload is about to get very happy. These are the envelopes that contain Green Cards and Work Authorization cards. Both of those things are life changing for their recipients, so I guess that is monumental in its own way!

Anytime I get home and open the front door a flash of dachshund joy present itself. Mollie practically turns herself inside out to greet me, regardless of what kind of day either one of us has had. She never fails to get happy to see me. That kind of love is pretty awesome, and mostly unlike any other. In exchange for her service as a love-dog and an early warning signaler we gift her with an occasional toy or a special bone. I know that is a coruscation moment for her, as she proudly carries her trophy round and round the house.

Shortly after I learned this new word, I read something in Facebook that astonished me. This event will be a grand coruscartion of light in our skies when it happens:

The star Betelgeuse, a massive red supergiant located around 640 light-years away, is reaching the final stages of its life.

This star is no ordinary space object. It’s 10 to 20 times more massive than the Sun, and it’s been burning through its nuclear fuel at an intense rate. In recent years, especially during the 2019–2020 dimming events, Betelgeuse has shown strange and unpredictable behaviour. These flickers and dips in brightness have scientists on edge, wondering if the long-expected supernova is finally near.

If Betelgeuse explodes, it will release an unimaginable amount of energy, briefly shining brighter than entire galaxies. And here’s the exciting part. The supernova explosion will be visible from Earth, even during the daylight hours, and could last for weeks or even months as a blazing point of light in the sky.

I don’t know if this will happen in my lifetime, but it will undoubtedly be a source of awe and amazement to us. 

These days, these politically confounding and disturbing days, finding flashes and glimmers of light saves my mind from being drawn too far into a morass of gloomy thoughts. Each morning, I read Richard Rohr’s meditations and almost always get a little jolt of spiritual solace. I save the ones that mean the most to me. (I suspect I have saved enough over the years to make a big book out of them.) Another flash of lightness of being happens when Jackie sends the latest pictures of the boys. They are growing so fast, and losing that round baby quality in their faces. Their antics are a source of joy.

Tomorrow morning after church I will speak to whoever shows up in the presentation room about what I call “transition stories”. I love being a storyteller, and tomorrow I will talk about a few of the people that were my hospice patients. Their stories deserve telling because each one was remarkable to me for the lessons they taught me as they made their final voyage off this planet. Each person lived to their end in much the same way they traveled through their lives. There are so many things to learn from these brave souls about how they navigated their last days. Each person shines as a bright light in my memory.

I hope you have a day full of coruscations!