He was transfigured before them,
and his face shone like the sun,
and his clothes became dazzling white.
—Matthew 17.2
Oh, please don’t explain this story.
It’s truly, divinely, accurately weird.
Sure, there’s a moral of the story—
several, in fact: theological constructs,
stuff you should believe. Fine. Hold those in your pocket.
Meanwhile, sit there for a minute,
cock your head a little and just gawk at this story.
It’s weird. Jesus shining, dead people chatting,
Peter talking nonsense, a cloud that enters like a crab
and holds them in its pincers, a disembodied voice. Whoa.
Don’t start in on theology,or psychology, or meteorology,
or any fool ology. This is not about ology.
This is about wonder.
How Jesus shines. Life just shines.
The glory of God spills out of things,
leaks out of every container, even people.
Being alive is beyond explanation,
grace is odd, love doesn’t make sense
and God is inexplicable— a real, absolute, true
mystery. Not a puzzle: a mystery.
The uncanny more-than-itself-ness of life.
Faith is not about having religious opinions,
not knowing, certainly not certainty.
Sometimes faith is just awe.
The willingness to be bedazzled,
to look at life and go, “Wow.”
When beauty and grace and loveliness overwhelm you,
when words fail and being smart is of no use.
You sense God may be afoot but can’t say how.
All you can do is say, “Huh. Whaddya know. Wow.”
Let this story be weird. Let life be amazing.
Let God be more than you can grasp.
Your faith needn’t be much more
than grateful, gob-smacked wonder.
If you really want to get religious, let this be your creed:
“Wow. Amen.”
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Listen to the audio version:
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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