Rocky Foundations

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 24, 2008; 15th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 16:13-20) -- When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
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In my grandfather's little town a lot of people went by their nicknames. There were my two cousins, "Kiss-em" Grisham (with the English pronunciation, a silent "h"), and his younger brother "Hug-em." One year they were the starting guards for the Iuka Chieftain basketball team. "Kiss-em" passes to "Hug-em." My roommate "Bubba" was from Iuka. I tell some Bubba stories from time to time. His real name is David Olen Jourdan, III. And there was guy who was about 6-foot-seven -- the tallest person in Iuka. Everybody just knew him as "Shorty." Great fun.

Maybe Jesus was having some fun with his friend Simon when he nicknamed him "Rocky." "Peter" is a masculine form of the Greek word "petra," meaning "rock." Elsewhere in the New Testament we hear him called "Cephas," Aramaic for "rock."

The picture of Peter -- the Rock -- that we get in the New Testament is of someone who is hot-headed, quick, impulsive, fiery, bursting with energy, but not sure sometimes where to send that energy. The opposite of Rock-like. More "Sparky" than "Rocky."

Two weeks ago we saw Peter in a boat calling out impulsively to Jesus who was walking across the pommeling waves, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." "Come on," says Jesus. Peter hops right in and starts walking toward Jesus, until he sees the waves; he wavers and starts to sink, crying almost clownishly, "Lord, save me!"

Peter was the one who spoiled the wonder of the moment in the afterglow of the Transfiguration, when Jesus was simply glowing in the midst of an apparition with Moses and Elijah. It was like Peter clapped his hands and the mystery disappeared, as he said, "Let's get to work and do something, like build a shrine to what just happened." What a spoiler. That broke the mood.

In John's version of Jesus' arrest, it was Peter who grabbed a sword and attacked the high priest's slave, trying to defend his friend. "Put the sword away," Jesus had to tell him, and, according to Luke, Jesus repaired the damage, healing the man Peter had rashly injured.

But every once in a while, this mercurial, impetuous Peter gets it right. Maybe it was something about his uninhibited nature, but occasionally Peter intuits something and rushes into the possibilities with uncalulated zest.

"Who do they say I am?" Jesus asks. Like students carefully trying to fish for the answer they think the teacher wants, the disciples respond, "Some say this, and some say that." Jesus turns it on them. "But who do you say I am?" It is Peter who bursts toward the impossible possibility, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

I'll bet Jesus howled with laughter then. "God bless you, Peter. You are something else. Way to go Rocky. On this rock-hard, solid foundation I will build my church." I can see everybody getting in on the joke, with gleeful, high spirits. Jesus wraps his arms around the unrestrainable Peter and cheers, "The gates of hell cannot prevail against this!" The others respond with bouyant mirth. Jesus turns, and with an ambiguous solemnity, pronounces to Rocky, "I give you the keys to the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, is loosed in heaven." And the sheepish Peter doesn't quite know what to do with that, but he trusts Jesus. Then Jesus warns them against speaking any indiscreet word about Messiahs, and the scene ends.

I don't know if it happened just that way. But what I do know is that every time Peter intuited something that was bigger than he could handle and jumped right into it with reckless abandon, Jesus commended him, knowing all the while Peter could never live up to the wonders he embraced. That's a foundation you can build something wonderful on.

I'm a skeptic by nature, a doubter by temperament. But every once in a while something happens that tweaks my imagination, that teases my intuition with impossible possibility, and I can feel a tingle. "It all might be true. It all might be more wonderful than I can imagine." And when I jump in there and follow that energy, it seems that life opens up.

I remember wanting to experience God, to feel God, alive and real. Suddenly it seemed there was a presence in the room with me. I asked hopefully, sheepishly, "Is this it? Is this God?" And something like a cosmic laugh seemed to fill the universe, saying -- "Yes!"

Even though it seemed a little stupid to me, I tried contemplative prayer. Let go of thoughts, let go of feelings, let go of everything. It was maddening. I'm a borderline ADHD extrovert. Distraction, boredom, nothing. Until quiet broke through, and I descended somewhere below thought and feeling, where time stood still, and I didn't even exist, and All just was. I don't know what happened, but when something I call "me" separated again and emerged from the "All," there was peace.

I remember learning the physics of the wave/particle duality. Light simultaneously behaves like a wave and like a particle. It is both. And it teased me with all of the possibility of paradox that seems woven into the very fabric of creation -- human/divine, material/spiritual, immanent/transcendent. Maybe everything can be both/and rather than either/or.

I know that when I gave up the tribalism of insisting that my faith was the only fully true faith, a world of faithfulness opened up, and I could see God wonderfully manifest in new and marvelous ways.

Whenever I quit resenting the thousands of frustrations, tragedies and injustices, and imagine that God is universally present bringing life from death and healing to brokenness, I see signs of encouragement and places to put the energy of my hope.

Every once in a while the wonder of this simple act of Eucharist breaks upon me. A cup of wine, and bit of bread, a story about a dying man two thousand years ago, a community with open hands reaching out beyond ourselves to be fed by God. We become one with the All -- nutured, healed, fed. There is coherence, wonder, peace.

But then a hand claps, or a wave threatens, or I don't know how to deal with things, and the horizons collapse into such threatening ordinariness. So I have to live on memory. I remember the tingle. So I decide to act as if it all could be possible; the impossible possibility. God is good; God is here -- all is good, all is well, all is safe. And, like Peter, I look around for whatever the next thing might be that God wants me to throw my life into.

When you can sense yourself surrounded by the living energy of God, it's easier to forget yourself, lose your inhibitions, and live with a bit of rash, intuitive hope. Even when you fail.

You remember what happened to Peter when the chips were down. When Jesus warned them that trouble was brewing and that they would all desert him. "I will never desert you," boasted the impetuous Peter. Before the cock had crowed the next morning awake, he had denied even knowing Jesus, not once, but three times. Not much of a rock when the times got hard.

Peter was crushed. Such failure might break another, a person with some pride, with a bit of self-respect.

But sometime later, after the cross. After the first Eucharist when they knew Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Sometime later, on the shores of Lake Galilee, Jesus came to Peter. Three times Jesus asked him, "Peter, do you love me?" Three times Peter was able to speak his heart's deepest truth, "Yes, Lord, you know I love you." Three times Jesus commissioned him, "Feed my sheep; tend my lambs." And on this impetuous, fiery love, Jesus founded his church.

Love energized. And the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. Love energized. That is the intuitive key that open the heavens to bind and loose wonders. Love energized. It is the rock and foundation of the Kingdom of God. Love energized.

It can be unpredictable and failing; it can be impetuous and mysterious: But love energized continually teases us with the impossible possibility -- it all may be more wonderful than we can imagine. Every time we jump into it with both feet, wonders happen. And rash, flighty clowns become Rocks.
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The Ego-less Dog

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 17, 2008; 14th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 15:21-28) -- Jesus left Gennesaret and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.
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"It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

"Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

That is one of the most fascinating exchanges in all the scriptures. Six years ago when I last preached on this passage, I talked about it from Jesus' perspective. I talked about cultural conditioning. Cultural conditioning is the world-view that our environment gives us -- what our families, our neighbors, our religion, our nation and our circumstances tell us about the way things are. We drink it in with our mother's milk; we breathe it in from the atmosphere. It is part of our human inheritance.

Even Jesus, the Son of God, was formed by his own cultural conditioning. Orthodox faith asserts that Jesus was fully divine and fully human. Cultural conditioning was part of his humanity, just like his need for rest after a long day or the effect of nails on his human flesh. Jesus had been taught, like every child in Nazareth, that Canaanites are dogs. The dogs we're talking about weren't pets; they were scavengers. Unclean animals, like vultures or buzzards. "Dog" was a word you used to describe someone who was unclean. After centuries of conflict and alienation, for Jews, all Canaanites were dogs; and the Canaanites felt the same way about Jews. It was part of their cultural conditioning.

In our story today, a Canaanite woman confronts Jesus. She will not be silenced by the disciples; she will not be deflected politely by Jesus' gentle bit of self definition when he says, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Instead, she keeps on pushing; she won't stay in her place. So Jesus speaks to her as he has been taught. "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

Now, I know people from an older generation who were conditioned to call black people by the "N-word," without any personal hostility. I remember when, for me, gay people were "queers." I've heard ugly culturally conditioned references to Moslems and Middle-Easterners, especially during the past seven years. Occasionally I hear people say things about Fayetteville and Springdale. I'm cheering for the Americans during the Olympics. How about you? We're all culturally conditioned. It's part of our inheritance as human beings.

But Jesus shows us the way out. When this Canaanite woman says, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table," Jesus hears something that is out-of-sync with the way he always thought things were. Her comment catches him by surprise. It is not the comment of a dog. It is a profoundly human comment. More than that, it is a word of faith. His ears are always open to the possibility of a word of faith, even in unexpected places. He looks again at this woman whom he had been taught was just a dog, and he recognizes that she is a child of God. Instantly, without hesitation, he throws away a lifetime of cultural conditioning and responds to her with divine compassion, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." Her daughter is healed instantly.

Right after this story, Jesus goes into a pagan foreign land, and gives to them the same gifts he has been giving to his own people -- healing them and feeding a multitude. Never again did Jesus distinguish between outsiders and insiders as he mediated the abundant extravagance of God's grace to all people.

But I want to look at this story also from the perspective of this remarkable woman. Look at her. She comes to this foreign man and his retinue. She asks for mercy, placing her daughter's plight before them. She meets stony silence. She hears the disciples tell him to send her away. Then the man politely declines her request. She could have left at that point and kept her dignity. Instead, she will not take "no" for an answer, and keels before him, begging. He responds, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She knows what that means.

Notice what she doesn't do. She doesn't resist; she doesn't retain the insults; she doesn't react emotionally. "Dogs! Are you calling me a dog? Let me tell you what you are..." She doesn't reconfirm her own cultural conditioning and leave reinforced, "My mother told me about you Jews. She was right."

"It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

I imagine some time elapsed, as she let the insulting stuff pass through her. I can feel the silence before she turns, and with dignified humility says, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." What a disarming response.

This is an "ego-less" response. It might be what Eckhart Tolle calls an "out of ego experience." Listen to what he offers in his popular book A New Earth:

A powerful spiritual practice is consciously to allow the diminishment of ego... For example, when someone criticizes you, blames you, or calls you names, instead of immediately retaliating or defending yourself -- do nothing. Allow the self-image to remain diminished and become alert to what that feels like deep inside you. For a few seconds, it may feel uncomfortable, as if you had shrunk in size. Then you may sense an inner spaciousness that feels intensely alive. You haven't been diminished at all. In fact, you have expanded. You may then come to an amazing realization: When you are seemingly diminished in some way and remain in absolute non-reaction, not just externally but also internally, you realize that nothing real has been diminished, that through becoming "less" you become more. When you no longer defend or attempt to strengthen the form of yourself, you step out of identification with form, with mental self-image. Through becoming less (in the ego's perception), you in fact undergo an expansion and make room for Being to come forward. True power, who you are beyond form, can then shine through the apparently weakened form. This is what Jesus means when he says, "Deny yourself" or "Turn the other cheek." (p. 215)

Beneath all of the ego self -- the false self that we build up defensively around us, cooperating with the cultural conditioning that tells us who is strong, who is right -- beneath all of that we are all essentially God's children. We are all created in the image of God, filled with divine life, and one with every other creature in the universe. That's our true condition.

Whenever we can dis-identify with the ego-self, the cultural self, the false self -- we can simply be. Needing no defense; needing no defending. At one with all life, including the one who might appear as enemy.

In Centering Prayer we teach the "four-R's" as a way to deal with distractions in prayer: resist no thought, retain no thought, react emotionally to no thought, and return ever-so-gently to the sacred word. Maybe that's something like what this Canaanite woman did in the presence of this discomfort. She offered no resistance; she retained no insult; she did not react emotionally to the situation; and she returned ever-so-gently to the love that prompted her need. She was here to help her daughter. Her Being came forward as she spoke the disarming words, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

Immediately two miracles happened. Her daughter was healed, and Jesus shed the cultural conditioning of a lifetime.

We are given, two lessons, two examples in this remarkable story. There is the example of the Canaanite woman who remained centered in her own Being while her ego was being attacked, and there is the example of Jesus who immediately dismantled his cultural conditioning when he saw a deeper reality. This story offers us a path to both inner peace and outer reconciliation.

The divine presence that is our true self is also the divine presence that is the deepest reality of every other self. Can our eyes open to see God within our Being and to see God within every other being? As the 13th century mystic Meister Eckhart said, "The eye with which I see God is the eye with which God sees me."
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Thanks to Jim Burklo and his article The Bible and Eckhart Tolle for ideas for this sermon. Published in The Progressive Christian, July/August 2008)

(to read my previous sermon on this passage, go to our web site www.stpaulsfay.org, click "sermons", click "2002", click "August 18, 2002, 13 Pentecost; Proper 15 Year A" or go directly to: http://stpaulsfay.org//sermon081802.html. Link to sermon )

Presence in the Dark

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
visiting St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, Springdale, Arkansas
August 10, 2008; 13th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 14, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 14:22-33) -- Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
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From the earliest days, the Church has spoken of Jesus as God’s concrete, particular presence in the world – “God-with-us”. The disciples experienced the very real presence of God in the person and personality of Jesus who lived and died, and yet death could not hold him. They knew God-with-us even through the horror of death and beyond. That same presence continued with them.

But it takes confident eyes, eyes of faith, to see that Divine Presence everywhere. Especially in the threatening times; times of chaos and fear. That’s the situation of Peter and the disciples. The storm of life surrounds them and they are overwhelmed by menacing powers greater than they can cope with. You’ve been there, haven’t you? Maybe some of you are in that deep and heaving water right now. You are rowing as hard as you can to stay afloat, but there seems no escape from the threat and the darkness.

I’m glad Matthew includes a little note about the time. This boat battering begins “when evening came,” or more literally at twilight. And it continues all night. Maybe you’ve had nights like that. I sure have. And it gets particularly desperate in the wee hours. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates it “early in the morning,” but literally the Greek reads “in the fourth watch.” The fourth watch begins at 3:00 a.m. That’s the time when sleep escapes and your eyes betray you. When your imagination can create the worst possible fears. Sailors say it is the time of night when the strange things happen. It’s when you see things that aren’t there; or when you see things that are there, but they look like something else; when even the familiar and comfortable can look like something fearful and threatening.

It is in the fourth watch of the night that the disciples become aware of the Presence. “It is a ghost!” they cry. But then they hear another Voice, deep and familiar, calm, within and above the tumult. “Take heart; it’s me; don’t be afraid.”

Here’s the issue. Which is more real, the storm or the Divine Presence? What will we focus on, God-with-us or the threatening waves? Peter is every one of us. A faithful disciple but a vulnerable one, now overwhelmed by circumstances. Doubting – “Lord, if it is you...”; yet risking – “...command me to come to you on the water.” And as long as his focus is on the Divine Presence, he can rise above the chaos and threat. But as soon as his focus returns to the storm, his fear begins to sink him again. And when the disciples allow Jesus to enter their boat, the very real presence of God with and among them, the wind ceases. I wonder if the sea really calmed? Or did it just lose its fearful edge when God’s presence became centered in them.

On a cold day in 1942, inside a Nazi concentration camp, a lone young boy looks beyond the barbed wire and sees a young girl pass by. She too, is moved by his presence. In an effort to give expression to her feelings, she throws a red apple over the fence – a sign of life, hope, and love. The young boy bends over, picks up the apple. A ray of light has pierced his darkness.

The following day, thinking he is crazy for even entertaining the notion of seeing this young girl again, he looks out beyond the fence, hoping. On the other side of the barbed wire, the young girl yearns to see again this tragic figure who moves her so. She comes prepared with apple in hand. Despite another day of wintry blizzards and chilling air, two hearts are warmed once again as the apple passes over the barbed wire. The scene is repeated for several days. The two young spirits on opposite sides of the fence look forward to seeing each other, if only for a moment and if only to exchange a few words. The interaction is always accompanied by an exchange of inexplicably heartening feelings.

At the last of these momentary meetings, the young boy greets his sweet friend with a frown and says, “Tomorrow, don’t bring me an apple, I will not be here. They are sending me to another camp.” The young boy walks away, too heartbroken to look back.

From that day forward, the calming image of the sweet girl would appear to him in moments of anguish. Her eyes, her words, her thoughtfulness, her red apple, all were a recurring vision that would break his nighttime sweats. His family died in the war. The life he had known had all but vanished, but this one memory remained alive and gave him hope.

In 1957 in the United States, two adults, both immigrants, are set up on a blind date. “And where were you during the war?” inquires the woman.

“I was in a concentration camp in Germany,” the man replies.

“I remember I used to throw apples over the fence to a boy who was in a concentration camp,” she recalls.

With a feeling of shock, the man speaks. “And did that boy say to you one day, ‘Don’t bring an apple anymore because I am being sent to another camp’?” “Why, yes,” she responds, “but how could you possibly know that?”

He looks into her eyes and says, “I was that young boy.”

There is a brief silence, and then he continues, “I was separated from you then, and I don’t ever want to be without you again. Will you marry me?” They embrace one another as she says, “Yes.”

On Valentine’s Day 1996, on a national telecast of the ‘Oprah Winfrey’ show, this same man affirmed his enduring love to his wife of forty years.

(Yitta Halberstam & Judith Leventhal, Small Miracles, p. 129f)

In the confining prisons of your life, who is throwing the life-bearing apple for you? In your chaotic and threatening storms, can you see the ghostlike apparition which in reality is the Divine Presence, God-with-us?

Which reality captures your focus? The barbed wire and searchlights, the guards and death? Or the fruit and seed of compassion and love? At the hour of the fourth watch, what fills your imagination? The smallness of your boat, the vastness of the sea; the dark overwhelming waves reaching from below? Or the calm Presence that walks above it all, extending a gentle hand to save? Which reality do we see? It can be the difference between drowning and walking on water.


Let us pray.

In your hands we rest
In the cup of whose hands sailed an ark
Rudderless, without mast.

In your hands we rest
Who was to make of the aimless wandering of the Ark
A new beginning for the world.

In your hands we rest
Ready and content this day.
Amen.
(a prayer by my former teacher, Alan Jones)

Transfiguration Moments

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 3, 2008; Transfiguration Sunday, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 9:28-36) -- About eight days after Jesus had foretold his death and resurrection, Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah"--not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
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There are moments when something catches our attention with enough power that we stop whatever agenda we may have, and we become fully present -- focused and expansive -- open to an encounter with reality at its depths.

Dee Eisenhauer, a U.C.C. minister, remembers this from a college retreat in Montana. During the afternoon free time, I climbed up to a high place, a little grassy area on the side of an enormous mountain. For some reason, with all that expansiveness surrounding -- valley below, mountain peaks above -- I became fascinated with the complexity of the close view of a little two-foot square area of ground. I spent a long time just noticing fully everything that was living in that tiny patch of earth and it was amazing . I found a tiny little thing, about the size of three grains of rice stuck together, that was a pure, luminous amber color.

I picked it up, thinking it was a rock or a gem, and then was overcome with the sudden understanding that it was alive . It was extremely mysterious, unbelievably beautiful, this tiny, radiant unidentifiable living golden thing. Words can’t really express what it meant to me; it was a sign of holy mystery hidden in the world, revealed to the attentive, but not fully comprehendible. I lost the golden thingy as soon as I had absorbed the wonder of it. Of course I lost it; you can’t bring something like that back into the real world. ...But all these years I have carried the memory of it like a diamond in the pocket of my heart. It rides there, sparkling, whispering, “Don’t try to tell me there is no God. My eyes have seen the glory.” (from her sermon, "A Diamond in the Pocket of Your Heart," 2/6/05; Eagle Harbor Congregational Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington)

I think that kind of thing that happens to all of us from time to time. The artists and poets among us seem more conscious of these possibilities. But I'm convinced that Transfiguration moments happen to everyone. Moments when the veil tears apart, and we glimpse an inner reality that hints at the transcendent possibilities within all creation. A few years ago our parishioners collected our memories of Transfiguration moments into a booklet that we printed and shared on this feast day.

There are several other kinds of Transfiguration events that some scientists have researched. Psychologist William R. Miller has spent nearly twenty years studying what he called "quantum change" -- "a vivid, surprising, benevolent, and enduring personal transformation." He says that though people often hesitate to share these experiences, they are "surprisingly common."

A quantum change might be a sudden "aha!" that leaves you breathless with a new understanding or new truth. Some are mystical, like St. Paul's vision on the road to Damascus. Both kinds of events tend to leave a sense of enduring peace. Dr. Miller has documented how these events leave lasting changes in a person's life. (from "Spirituality and Health," Jan/Feb, 2005, p. 52)

What's a quantum change? Some familiar literary examples:

"Bah, humbug!" scowls the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge before curling up in bed one night. In his dreams he is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. He awakes a changed man.

Threatened with bankruptcy and depressed because he's never lived out his dreams, drunken George Bailey is about to end his life off the Bedford Falls bridge when Clarence, his guardian angel lets him see the true value of his modest life. I always get a tear at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life" when Harry Bailey toasts, "To my big brother George. The richest man in town."

Yes, those are fictional stories, but I'll bet we all know some real stories.

Maybe you recall when my friend Fred Burnham visited St. Paul's a few years ago. Fred worked at Trinity Church in the shadow of the World Trade Center. He was there on September 11, filming a documentary with a group of religious leaders. At a point in that traumatic morning, when he was certain of his immanent death, Fred realized suddenly that he was not afraid to die. He was a priest, and he had talked and preached about death. But he never knew for sure what he felt in his depths. Now he knows. He's not afraid to die. The other thing he realized was that he loved ever other person that was there about to die with him. He loved them all, each of them, with a profound and powerful care. Amazingly they all escaped. And in subsequent weeks Fred discovered that his sense of love for all of those who were with him had expanded to include all humanity. He says that everything about him has changed. Oh, he's the same; but different.

Parishioner Nancy Burris will tell nearly anyone that she is thankful for her cancer. She is glad over what she has learned and experienced because of cancer. Before her illness, she didn't know how much she was loved. She had no idea so many people cared about her. During this journey, every time she has been faced with losing something she thought she couldn't live without, something amazing has happened. "I was very attached to my hair," she'll tell you. "It was curly, thick, without any gray. My hair was my adornment." So she shopped carefully for wonderful wigs that would keep her glorious. But she had an unusual chemotherapy side effect; her hair follicles were painfully sensitive to touch -- she couldn't stand to wear a wig. When she walked out into public completely bald, she experienced a profound sense of liberation. She felt gloriously alive and free. She didn't need her hair to be radiant. "It's weird," she says, in her wonderful Southern accent, "but wonderful." Talk with Nancy these days. She is effervescent.

You don't have to face death to have a quantum change, to experience transfiguration. It happens in quiet ways, too. Former U.N. general secretary Dag Hammarskjold, wrote in his diary ("Markings") about experiencing the mystery of God while watching a distant sail atop a boat:

Summoned
To carry it,
Alone
To assay it,
Chosen
To suffer it,
And free
To deny it,
I saw
For one moment
The sail
In the sun storm
Far off
On a wave crest,
Alone, bearing from land.

And he continued: "I don't know Who -- or what -- put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone -- or Something -- and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal."

I've often had these little moments here in this holy place, in this church. When water is poured over someone, and I can almost see the heavens open and the Spirit alight and a voice speak, "This is my beloved child." When bread is broken and the words, "The gifts of God for the people of God" bring divine life to us. When the sounds of feet walking toward communion or the words of a hymn touch something so deeply real. There is gratitude. And peace. Deep gladness. Wonder.

I carry these things like little diamonds in the pocket of my heart. Sometimes it seems like the whole world shimmers with teeming energy. And then it recedes. And I notice the scratch on the furniture in front of me or the time that reminds me of a pressing duty. And I'm the same. But different.
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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
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