A
Reflection for the Feast of Transfiguration All
Saints Church, Southern Shores, NC August 6, 2017 Thomas E
Wilson, Rector
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Transfigurations
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This is the fifteenth Feast of the Transfiguration I have spent with you in this church; only twice in these fifteen times has it fallen on a Sunday. I was hit by the vision of an image of Earth and Heaven being united. I thought about all the times that I saw the light of earth and heaven being united and I saw it every place I looked, I wrote the poem and decided I didn’t need to go to prose. Jesse Smith was a young gifted pianist who did a concert here when I was thinking about Heaven and earth uniting and it did in his talent. Judy is Judy Mumma our Administrative Assistant who keeps me straight and parishioners threw her a surprise birthday party to share their love. The Senator is John McCain who I watched give his speech coming back after he got the diagnosis. Stephen is the Seminary intern who finished up his summer time with us and returning back to finish his senior year. . It reminded me of Elizabeth Barrret Browning’s lines from Aurora Leigh: “Earth's crammed with heaven, /And every common bush afire with God, / But only he who sees takes off his shoes;/The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
Transfigurations
Moses
and Elijah appear around Jesus
now
surrounded by a cloud of witness
disciples
are gaping in wonderment at
what
they thought they would not see.
Gushes:
“Master it is good we are here,
let
us build booths for our witness to
that
which can not be seen every day.”
But
witnesses come every day of week.
Jesus
says “NO” to the ideas of staying to
build
monuments on mountains to capture
moments
in hallowed museums of memory
saying;
“This alone was holy.” His earthly life
is
too short to waste on that. He leads them
to
bring the light into the valleys of daily life
where
the centuries of grace surrounds us
with
the clouds of witness encouraging the
doing
the best we can with gifts God gives.
Jesse
Smith settles down on the bench
Holding
his hands above the keys and
concentrates
to bring the piece together
Quietly
a small audience waits with him.
Now,
his hands come down and the light
shines
between notes as Liszt’s hands
air
pianos along above the old upright
as
Brahms stands whispering “jawohl”!
In
the Emergency room she pulls the
thread
through the wound while she
murmurs
soothing notes to a little child
in
the mother’s arms as the light shines
even
more as they are flanked by a Lady
with
the Lamp and Clara Barton nodding
for
life is too short not to give comfort.
In
the office a score of All Saints crowd
in
to thank Judy for the love she shares
doing
the work that it is easy to take for
granted.
But more than that they are also
thanking
God for gifts God gives through
her.
The light shines and on each side Kay
O’Brien
and Tom Secules, who knew how
to
treasure people, add their own applause
for
life is too short not to give our thanks .
The
senator comes up to the lectern to call
the
senators to remember why they were
chosen;
not to be right or left but models
for
all citizens on how a democracy works
by
granting respect to those we disagree:
light
shimmers as Clay and Webster agree
life
is too short to govern/live other ways.
The
grandmother volunteers to answer the
office
phones and brings her granddaughter
to
learn how to help and when not helping
they
draw and color together sharing stories
showing
each other that time is too short to
waste
not to enter into clouds of witness.
Granddaughter
is lucky she sees into clouds.
Last
Sunday we became God’s witness cloud
as
we laid hands on Stephen’s next journey
using
the Spirit’s doing cloud conversations
entering
into and not being afraid of the light,
life
is too short to not live into transfigurations.
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