Deliberately Diverse represents the individual thoughts and opinions of a group of Taylor friends who almost never completely agree about anything but enjoy diverse discussions in our beloved community. Today’s column represents the thoughts and opinions of The Reverend Terry Pierce, vicar of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Taylor.
The Biblical story of the transfiguration of Jesus is repeated in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
Paraphrasing the story, Jesus takes James, John and Peter up the mountain to pray. As Jesus is praying, in Luke we are told that “the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.”
The gospel of Mark says, “His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.”
Then Moses and Elijah appeared, talking with Jesus. Peter asked if he might put up shelters for the three so that they could stay on the mountain. But then a cloud covered them and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.
Listen to him.” Then the disciples looked around and saw no one there but Jesus and with Jesus they left the mountain.
The beginning of this story reminds us of the story of Moses encountering God on the mountain and returning to his people and “the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.”
Transfiguration is a moment of divine radiance, a moment in which we are changed by an encounter with the Holy. Many writers compare it to an encounter with fire. For both Moses and Jesus, it was a preparation for being with and guiding their people.
In his poem based on the Transfiguration titled God Unsheltered, Andrew King writes:
The mind would build its shelters, its walls, its solid boundaries, its holding pens for those mysteries that challenge the edges of thought;
The problem with transfiguration is that it separates us from our neat and sheltered reality. It tosses us into the midst of a world where we encounter mysteries and stories and people that don’t fit into our preconceived notions or ideas. We would build “holding pens” to contain the mystery and keep ourselves anchored to what we have always known and always believed.
Like Peter, I would stay on the mountain away from the noise and disturbance of city life.
The challenge for me is that I am often so busy building walls and shelters to keep what is difficult and scary at bay, that I don’t notice when the holy and the sacred cross my path.
I am staring at the ground trying to avoid skinning my toe on a rock and the world shimmers in beauty unnoticed around me.
Andrew King in the same poem describes God as “the love that burns like fire.” Today I hope that love would move me outside what is comfortable and known, would invite me to look up and about me, and to notice the holy where it abides in the unfamiliar and the unknown.
