Loading...I was just listening for Jesus like the cloud voice says to.
Some of what I hear Jesus say has come not to my ears but to my eyes. I have seen the light! I’ve see the transfiguring light of life in loads of places. One of the most remarkable experiences comes from a visit to a nursing home patient 25 years ago.
Before I was a priest I was the medical equipment manager for a hospice. One Friday afternoon when I was in a bad mood I got the call to deliver a breathing machine to a patient who was imminently dying. I hauled it forty miles outside of town, dodged the giant potholes in the muddy parking lot, and composed my senses upon entering the lobby saturated with the odor of urine.
The patient’s room was completely filled with nurses, social workers, and aids in a flurry of anxiety. It was a dark errand to a dark place. When I handed the breathing machine to the nurse she plopped in a corner and left the room. I turned to look at the man in the bed. He was emaciated so that his hospital gown barely clung to his shoulders. Due to the nature of his cancer his jaw had been removed. I could perceive he was indeed actively dying, yet he sat upright in bed peacefully looking at me in such a way that I knew he was fully lucid.
Then what was left of his mouth smiled. I looked into his eyes and I saw it. The exact same bedazzlement Luke describes in chapter 9. Y'all know I know my sparkles. There is a certain radiance that cannot be bought. I saw THE Sparkle of all Sparkles inside those eyes. I did not get the impression that the man was leaving all the suffering of the present moment for Jesus to take him home. Rather what I witnessed was the light of a sun shining on a brighter shore breaking into this man’s suffering and taking him and his suffering along with it. And that other-wordly sunshine shone out right onto me and I haven’t been able to scrub it off since.
I was changed. I don’t think I glowed, but I sure felt like I was walking on a cloud when I floated through the stinky lobby and over the muddy potholes and into the hot glare of highway traffic. The Light that came for him let me see the glory of where he was being taken. He died within moments of my departure.
I saw a moment of uncovering between heaven and earth in a place that feels as unlikely as any to experience anything but hell.
One of my friends (Nadia Bolz-Weber) describes moments of uncovering as apocalyptic, because uncovering is what the word “apocalyptic” means. And “uncovering” is what happened to Peter, James and John when they agreed to go up the mountain and pray with Jesus.
The veil between heaven and earth thins in a way which uncovers otherwise unseeable people who are close by. Have they been there all along? No idea. But Moses and Elijah are visible and close now and they are talking about the departure Jesus is about to make on the cross of Calvary.
Many friends have asked me, how is it people like Moses, Elijah, Peter, James and John get one-on-one time with God - “wish we all had it.” As far as I can see, and hear, we all do. We get fooled into thinking the only source of light is from the window. As beautiful as the light of this window is, I see the Light of Life shine in plenty of other places. When I look at you face-to-face I see the face of God. The gospel writer John says the light shines in the darkness. I bet you’ve seen it shine too.
One of the slippery, squirrely tricks of many media outlets today is how they make themselves the champions of dispelling clouds of status quo and exposing darkness of complacency to the light of action. For the record I am all for that dispelling and exposing business. But it has become a business. Sign me up for the #metoo, #timesup and moms against students getting murdered in schools. Yes to all those efforts. Beware how those movements are subject to the media outlets selling their product: the sweat of fear-for-what-might-be. Don’t let yourself become a product of the fear business.
Uncover the fear and find the Light face-to-face. Give yourself the chance to feel suspicious of someone in the business of selling something they promise can right all the wrongs. What I saw in that crappy nursing home room wasn’t someone righting all the wrongs — the wrong of death has already been righted — I simply watched the sunrise from a far horizon onto the sunset of this one. It was a complete transfiguration of a man whose dazzling eyes bedazzled mine. I saw The Light taking all that is wrong into a place so powerful it gave a smile to a man without a mouth. And it gave a woman a sparkle she can’t shake off.
That indomitable sparkle humbles my prayers and lowered my blood pressure every time I am faced with the barrage of news and editorials. So I sing the old hymn as a Jesus-prayer: Fill me radiancy divine, scatter all my unbelief. [“Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies”, Charles Wesley (1740)]
A news reporter and a producer may shine a spotlight. But it’s only you and I who will shine the reconciling light of love from the midst of suffering.
Today I am willing to risk reminiscing about one place I have witnessed Transfiguration. Just like Peter reminisces about his in the letter he writes because he is an eyewitness of the reconciling light.
When my sister or brother shares their #metoo story with me we are soaked with a light so radiant that no darkness can overcome it. Light has been traditionally found shining —not in the spotlight of a news desk or a damning expose, but in the personal suffering of a neighbor. This is true especially if you are feeling cranky like I was the day I visited the nursing home, or tired like Peter like the day he climbed the mountain. Those are the exact moments when light may be most visible.
I’m not looking for the reconciling power of uncovering in the media outlets because I am finding it in the middle of us gathered together in this community of transfigured people where the living connect with the dead: Heart to heart. Shore to shore. Heaven to earth. Face to face. I see you. I see the light! AMEN.
