To See A World in a Grain of Sand...

...And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour. (William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence")

This Sunday, the second in Lent, gives us another really Good Story, in which son of a carpenter who has been impressing the locals and gathering a following is transformed before their very eyes. The 9th chapter of Luke’s Good Story starts like this. (Once upon a time…)…Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.
For those noticing, this makes two; two times that weird things happened that made them look closely at this guy Jesus. You know, like there’s something different about him, good different, special. First there was The Voice when he was baptized, remember? The thunder, the dove, the “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him!” And now this bright light, this appearance of two heroes of Jewish history.
As you read this Story (click for a link) come to your senses; apply your senses in the story. It is a doorway to experience. Imagine yourself having walked with Jesus to this place. Your feet are hot; you’re a little tired from the walk, perhaps a bit thirsty. He walks up the hill and you decide to just sit down and wait for him to come back down. And then you see the light, and everything has changed. It’s like that Jordan River scene all over again, except this time it’s That Light, like it was coming from inside him. Jesus! It’s just him; you can recognize the face, but he’s different. He’s magnificent, made bigger somehow by that light, more than he was before. Then you see Moses and Elijah, and you turn your face away, afraid that you should not be looking. Suddenly you are a child, and this is not something you should not see. Then the light behind your turned face dims, and disappears. It is only Jesus. He’s back to his old self. Did it really happen? You’re not sure, but every time you look at him now, you wonder.
Transfiguration – it happens all the time. For the next three days we will look at examples of it. A poem, a nine year old girl, and a bag lady will be our guides. During these days, re-read the Good Story that we will hear on Sunday, and know that it is YOUR story, happening all around you.  In “God’s Grandeur” Gerard Manley Hopkins is moved by this awareness that God lurks behind everything, accompanying us, wooing us, stalking us. Lured by love for us, he sneaks us glimpses from time to time. You see something, or think you saw something. It upsets and scintillates you, wakes up something strangely familiar in you. Did it really happen?

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? (carry his banner; follow him)
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.


And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

They are everywhere, Hopkins suggests, these shinings, these oozes, these springings, and with them come these Ahhhhs, like with your thumbs yesterday, these times when something inside your resonates, feels the rightness of an unseen truth.  They are a distant thunder, a flash of light that is over in a minute, and maybe you wonder if they ever really happened. You’re not sure, but every time you look at anything now, you wonder.

Tomorrow: Sunrise, Sunset; a nine year old girl and her poem
Saturday: Thomas Merton’s Bag Lady


FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.