The property
that Quiet Rest sits on was personally explored in early summer of 2003. It was
an exhilarating experience. I thought of the view I would see once on top of the
little mountain. When I arrived it was not disappointing, rather chills of joy
ran up and down my arms. It had taken thirty to forty five minutes, literally
crawling through thickets of Mountain Laurel, Rhododendron, fern and briars. I
stopped, catching my breath, for seconds, only before attacking numerous extra
steep slopes, traveled easily by wild game, where a road has been cut out for my
access today. I was sixty then.
The other day, starting at the top, I proceeding down the road, leisurely taking pictures of the various species of wild mushrooms along the edges and banks. After an hour and a half I had reached the bottom and realizing the rain clouds moving quickly, I began my return to the house. Within twenty yards, my legs cramped, my chest pounded, my body dehydrated, and I sat for five minutes before I was able to breath with normal cadence. It took me seven of those breaks before I collapsed in a willow chair on the front porch. I am only seventy, now.
The experience scared me a bit and from it, the next morning, I began drawing out in symbols and timelines the road map of my life. I drew in both single and crucial moments as well as entire years marked with particular themes of development. The picture of my life shows distinctly abrupt moments of pivotal formation and gradual phases of transformation. It, to me, is of somewhat a paradox that insight seems to grow gradually and yet it also seems to arrive in overpowering moments of abruptness.
As Peter, James, and John climbed the mountain with Christ, they were startled when Elijah and Moses appeared before them, talking with Jesus. It must have seemed a moment of both honor and awe. Peter immediately responded to it. "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah" (Matthew 17:4). But before he had finished speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them and a voice from the heavens thundered, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" The disciples were terrified. And then as suddenly as it all began, they looked up and saw no one but Jesus.
In my life there have been transforming moments that seemed isolated in both time and vividness. I remember them as mountaintops or downfalls, points in life lifted above or plummeting below the majority of the map. But I now ask myself; are they not also much more than this? Whether distinguished by joy or pain, I now realize a transforming moment is always more than a moment. Such moments are no more isolated in the picture of my life than they are isolated in the picture of reality.
Professor and theologian James Loder was on vacation with his family when they noticed a motorist off to the side of the road waving for help. In his book The Transforming Moment, he describes kneeling at the front fender of the broken-down car, his head bent to examine the flat tire, when he was a brutally alerted to the sound of screeching brakes. A motorist who had fallen asleep at the wheel was jarred awake seconds before his vehicle crashed into the disabled car alongside the road and the man who knelt beside it. Loder was left pinned between the car he was trying to repair and his own.
Years later, he was compelled to describe the impact of a moment marked by pain, and yet unarguably something much more. Writes Loder, "At the hospital, it was not the medical staff, grateful as I was for them, but the crucifixes—in the lobby and in the patients' rooms—that provided a total account of my condition. In that cruciform image of Christ, the combination of physical pain and the assurance of a life greater than death gave objective expression and meaning to the sense of promise and transcendence that lived within the midst of my suffering."
This encounter with God, like the Transfiguration of Christ to a small group of frightened disciples, did not merely transform a moment; it was a moment that transformed reality and thus, the whole of life. Writes Loder, "Moments of transforming significance radically reopen the question of reality."
When the disciples came to the end of their mountaintop encounter and looked up, they saw only Jesus. Moses and Elijah were no longer there; the cloud that enveloped them disappeared and the heavens ceased to speak. But the divine Jesus was fully and humanly present to them, the glimpse of God in that transforming moment on the mountain a radical reality that would shape all of life.
I continue to learn that there will be certain times when truth must dazzle gradually, until it is given its proper place. And at other times I will, more than likely, find myself moved nearly to blindness as I encounter more than I have the eyes yet to see. Sometimes, like Peter, I will probably interpret these moments of transcendence imperfectly. Yet, I am convicted to believe that God is at work even in the deciphering, and in the final examination, the content of my transforming moments is Jesus alone, the transfigured one, the transforming one, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.
The other day, starting at the top, I proceeding down the road, leisurely taking pictures of the various species of wild mushrooms along the edges and banks. After an hour and a half I had reached the bottom and realizing the rain clouds moving quickly, I began my return to the house. Within twenty yards, my legs cramped, my chest pounded, my body dehydrated, and I sat for five minutes before I was able to breath with normal cadence. It took me seven of those breaks before I collapsed in a willow chair on the front porch. I am only seventy, now.
The experience scared me a bit and from it, the next morning, I began drawing out in symbols and timelines the road map of my life. I drew in both single and crucial moments as well as entire years marked with particular themes of development. The picture of my life shows distinctly abrupt moments of pivotal formation and gradual phases of transformation. It, to me, is of somewhat a paradox that insight seems to grow gradually and yet it also seems to arrive in overpowering moments of abruptness.
As Peter, James, and John climbed the mountain with Christ, they were startled when Elijah and Moses appeared before them, talking with Jesus. It must have seemed a moment of both honor and awe. Peter immediately responded to it. "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah" (Matthew 17:4). But before he had finished speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them and a voice from the heavens thundered, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" The disciples were terrified. And then as suddenly as it all began, they looked up and saw no one but Jesus.
In my life there have been transforming moments that seemed isolated in both time and vividness. I remember them as mountaintops or downfalls, points in life lifted above or plummeting below the majority of the map. But I now ask myself; are they not also much more than this? Whether distinguished by joy or pain, I now realize a transforming moment is always more than a moment. Such moments are no more isolated in the picture of my life than they are isolated in the picture of reality.
Professor and theologian James Loder was on vacation with his family when they noticed a motorist off to the side of the road waving for help. In his book The Transforming Moment, he describes kneeling at the front fender of the broken-down car, his head bent to examine the flat tire, when he was a brutally alerted to the sound of screeching brakes. A motorist who had fallen asleep at the wheel was jarred awake seconds before his vehicle crashed into the disabled car alongside the road and the man who knelt beside it. Loder was left pinned between the car he was trying to repair and his own.
Years later, he was compelled to describe the impact of a moment marked by pain, and yet unarguably something much more. Writes Loder, "At the hospital, it was not the medical staff, grateful as I was for them, but the crucifixes—in the lobby and in the patients' rooms—that provided a total account of my condition. In that cruciform image of Christ, the combination of physical pain and the assurance of a life greater than death gave objective expression and meaning to the sense of promise and transcendence that lived within the midst of my suffering."
This encounter with God, like the Transfiguration of Christ to a small group of frightened disciples, did not merely transform a moment; it was a moment that transformed reality and thus, the whole of life. Writes Loder, "Moments of transforming significance radically reopen the question of reality."
When the disciples came to the end of their mountaintop encounter and looked up, they saw only Jesus. Moses and Elijah were no longer there; the cloud that enveloped them disappeared and the heavens ceased to speak. But the divine Jesus was fully and humanly present to them, the glimpse of God in that transforming moment on the mountain a radical reality that would shape all of life.
I continue to learn that there will be certain times when truth must dazzle gradually, until it is given its proper place. And at other times I will, more than likely, find myself moved nearly to blindness as I encounter more than I have the eyes yet to see. Sometimes, like Peter, I will probably interpret these moments of transcendence imperfectly. Yet, I am convicted to believe that God is at work even in the deciphering, and in the final examination, the content of my transforming moments is Jesus alone, the transfigured one, the transforming one, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.
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