Transfiguration

What would it be like if we could really see just one person as they really are, their truest self? It was said in the Old Testament that if a person were to see the face of God, they would die. I suspect that the same sense of overwhelming awe would overcome us if we could see the face of a person, really see.
Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." In Through a Glass Darkly, Bergman tells the story of a David, a psychiatrist who realizes that he is drawn to dispassionately chronicle his adult daughter Karin’s descent into mental illness. He fails to see her, until he has his own episode with consideration of suicide, and is given a grace that he describes to his son: “From the void within me, something was born that I can't touch or name. A love. For Karin. For Minus. For you."

Face to face. Perhaps we choose to hide behind our face, to keep our truth inside, acknowledging Blake’s poetic claim of the human face as a “furnace sealed”. I have noticed Kathy and our children studying my face when something is going on in my life, most noticeably in those weeks following my doctor’s discovery of this aneurism. When all of us were considering the reality of my death, they searched my face for the words I might not speak, for truth that I might hide.
And sometimes we choose not to see. In I and Thou Martin Buber writes “All actual life is encounter.” But he is quoted as saying “I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human face looking at me.” Perhaps like Buber we step back from the awe of encounter, into deep books and deep places that are shallow in comparison to any human face. We choose to see through a glass darkly.

And so I ask the question again. What would it be like if we could really see just one person as they really are, their truest self? We have a hint of it in the Gospel story of the Transfiguration. "After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.” And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one but only Jesus."
I think of this story as an invitation to the ordinary experience that awaits us in each human face truly seen. Transfiguration is from the Latin trans (across) and figura (shape,form). On that mountain, Peter and James and John got it. They saw the real Jesus. Jesus let himself be seen. In that moment of nothing more than truth, the whole truth, the nature of this man was so clear that his friends were almost blown away; when they looked up again, they saw “no one, but only Jesus.” They had had a momentary glimpse that took root in their memory, and they would forever know Jesus’ true identity.

Perhaps Buber hides in his books and David observes his daughter only as a subject in fear that the Old Testament warning applies to human faces as well, that if we look at them we will die. But Buber, and David, and you and I each emerge from this darkly fear into the clear light of encounter, into the truth and grace found face to face.

And we experience in the moment of that encounter an eternity of awareness that takes root in our memory; and we will forever know the true identity of the person into whose face we have looked.

Lent begins tomorrow. Perhaps instead of giving something up, we can intentionally allow ourselves to be seen, can intentionally see, can intentionally be face to face, to know and to be known.

Tomorrow – Sleeping with Bread: a Lenten practice of daily reflection

Note to FreeLemonadeStand readers: I have been encouraged by some of you to write a book, something I have long considered.  Since I plan on massaging parts of this blog into that book, please honor my request that you keep this text here on this site and in your heart, and not duplicate or copy it! Thank You! And thank you so much for reading my musings….