what
Mark 9:2-9; 2 Corinthians4:3-6
Whenher doctor took off her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl whowas no longer blind saw "the tree with the lights in it." It was forthis tree I searched through the peach orchards of summer, in the forests offall and down winter and spring for years. Then one day I was waling alongTinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights init. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged andtransfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with thelights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed.
Itwas less like seeing that like being for the first time seen, knockedbreathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I'm stillspending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colorsdied, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was stillringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that momentI was lifted and struck. I have since only very rarely seen the tree with thelights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes but I live for it, for themoment when the mountains open and new light roars in spate through the crack,and the mountains slam.
Annie Dillard saw the tree withlights in it. She had been looking for it. What do we see? Can we even see thetrees, never mind their light? Seriously, have you really looked at a treelately? Have you seen the light?
What we see it seems to me isinfluenced far more than we know or care to admit by the culture we findourselves in. We are deeply rooted in a rational and materialistic culture thatimmediately dismisses such things as trees with lights as nonsense andirrelevance. Sadly we see what we are told we can see. Who goes around lookingfor the beauty of God in the world anymore? Who really thinks that there is an unseen reality that is eternal and ismore real than anything we can see with our eyes?
look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen for what canbe seen is temporary but what cannot be seen is eternal
Some of the great mystics havewritten of the veil between us and that reality, a veil that is sometimes mysteriouslylifted and a glimpse is given of the light of God like the tree with lights,like the transfiguration of Jesus on the holy mountain. Oddly enough even whenwe see such things we are not always ready to see them. Peter is the greatexample.
In the company of eternal lightPeter's first reaction is to build something temporary.
Evenwith us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walkinghis child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the garden, of sometimes eventhe unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in thesand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseballgame in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent,so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing.
I think that might explain Peter'sreaction on the holy mountain. He couldn't bear what he was seeing. He neededto do what he knew how to do. Our culture has us convinced that what matters ifwhat you know and you can know what ever you need to know. Knowledge is thekey. But even knowledge has its limits. It can not help us understand what weare not capable of knowing. The modern mind simply discounts what cannot beknown but I believe the Rabbi was right. The right response to the light in thetrees, to the light in the face of Jesus is not to know it or explain it but toexperience it, in his words to know whatis more than anything we can grasp. This is a different kind of knowledge.It is knowledge of what we don't know. Perhaps we don't see the light because itfrightens us. We might be forced to admit that there is much that we don'tknow. Nelson Mandela once said that we are more afraid of the light than thedarkness. Maybe it's not the light but the truth about ourselves that we fear.Sadly the fear also keeps from knowing the truth about God and God's grace aswell. In order to know that we can be healed we need to know that we need to behealed.
But this is about more than beinghealed. This not just one more way to fix ourselves. Thereis nothing practical or practiced about transfigurations. They are sheer gift,the unexpected gift of joy in which we understand without knowing that nomatter what happens its going to be all right. When Jesus was transfigured itis a turning point in the telling of his story. It is the beginning of the end,an end that proves to be not the end so much but the beginning of everythingand the beginning of forever, the future that exists in the present sincebefore the past. After the light that illuminated him and lit up the skies onthe holy mountain, Jesus came down again from the mountaintop to the peoplewaiting in their suffering, unknowing how they will ever overcome the blows ofthe universe. He is on his way to death but full of the light and life of theeternal God, full of the promise of life. Death in no way could stop him fromliving.
This is about joy, the joy ofknowing there is more than we can know, the joy ofknowing that just behind the veil that hides the light from us there is a lightthat outshines the sun. And seeing the light is important because it is life tous. Being alive is not just about beingalive. It is about living surrounded by and filled with the beauty and joy ofGod.
Of course, I should tell you thatwhat we see is not entirely up to us. Often it depends on being somewheresometime who knows when or where. There are any numberof people who have been on any number of holy mountains and seen nothing atall. I have this scene in my head. I don't know where it comes from. I may noteven have it remembered correctly but what is there goes like this: A fatherand his beloved little girl who is very sick and possibly even dying aretalking just after being told that it didn't look good but sometimes miracleshappen. The father says what would pretty much sum up what we know with thewords, "I'll believe it when I see it." But the little girl says,"Oh no papa. You have to believe first and then you will see."
A bit sentimental perhaps but inthe simple exchange the essential question about what we see is posed. Does itmean that we only see what we expect to see or does it mean that believing morethan we can see opens us to what we do not expect?
Thesecret of seeing (writes Dillard) is, then, the pearl of great price. If Ithought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would staggerbarefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But, although thepearl may be found, it cannot be sought. The literature of illumination revealsthis above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, evento the most practiced and adept, a gift and total surprise.
Icannot cause the light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path ofits beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be itparticle or wave, has force: you rig a giant sail and go. thesecret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till youyourself are a sail, whetted, translucent . . .
What we see changes everything. Ifwe see only what our mind tells us there is to see we see only what we can see.But if we see what our heart tells us to see our minds begin to see more thanwe ever dreamed possible. With our eyes we see bread on a plate but if we look withour hearts we see the love of God for the whole world. Call it passion. Call itlove. Call it the living Spirit of God. Call it what you want but without it wehave little chance of seeing what we see.
The singing duoof Lowen and Navarro have it right in theirsimple lyrics:
you open your heart, love opens your mind
been that way for the longest time
Welive our lives
the eye of a hurricane
Wecast our fates
Onseas of indifference
Butall along the shoreline
look for a chance to believe
darkness will fade,
the promise will survive
Maybe that is as good a reason aswe need if we need a reason to exist as a congregation of the Church thatgathers in the name of Jesus Christ.
Here we are given the chance tobelieve.
May the tree with lights in it,
