"Several months before the moment that I write these words I had an unusual experience, one that I never had before. I was flying from California to Kansas City and night had fallen when the pilot announced over the intercom that if we looked out of our windows we would see a very usual, once-in-a-lifetime sight. We were flying four thousand feet above normal cruising altitude, to avoid a violent thunderstorm that was sweeping across western Kansas, he explained. I looked out my window and was indeed astonished. I was looking down on an unbroken sea of light, but light of a kind I had never before seen — light that never was on land or sea. It was so ethereal that simply to gaze on it was to feel peaceful. It is no exaggeration to say that it was a holy light."