[Propertalk] Transfiguration 2017 - Part 2

Sat Aug 5 16:49:54 EDT 2017

Part 2 of tomorrow's draft

	 Have you ever been bowled over by the grace of God suddenly becoming
visible in someone? It is, literally, heart-stopping, or heart-racing,
if only for a moment. God gives us these moments in our lives to
encourage us, especially when things seem to be out of control, when
difficulties pile up in our lives, when we may find ourselves hard put
to find anything about which to smile of laugh. God comes to us
through all sorts of people and occasions, if only we have the ability
to see and recognise them.

	 However, we needn’t beat ourselves up about not being able to see
or to make sense of these moments when we and God are in such a
relationship that we’re filled with light and joy. After all, the
disciples went down the mountain, hardly able to think straight, or to
gather in their minds what they’d just seen and heard; they went
down the mountain with the self-same, beautiful Jesus, and still
managed to commit blunder after blunder, despite their occasional
flashes of brilliance.

	 No, this aspect of our faith, of our relationship with God may not
be easy to deal with, far less to appreciate. Yet that never stops God
from interacting with us, from creating moments in which we CAN
experience “something beautiful for God”. Take the experience of
Cindy Augustine, for instance.

	 She wrote, “I was a block away from Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center on my way to my first appointment with a breast surgeon
when I realized I didn’t have my wallet. I was in the back of a cab,
and the meter read $18.70.

	 “‘Stop the car,’ I said. ‘I’ll get out here.’ My voice
cracked as I explained to the driver that I had left my wallet at
home, something I had done maybe twice in my life.

	 “He looked at me in the rearview mirror and continued driving
toward Second Avenue. It wasn’t quite 8 a.m. and I already felt
defeated.

	 “‘Please give me your information and I’ll call you with my
credit card number,’ I said. ‘I’ll send cash.’ I was on the
verge of tears.

	 “He calmly pulled a piece of the receipt tape from the meter and
started to write. He handed me the piece of paper with his name,
address and phone number.

	 “‘If you pay me, good,’ he said. ‘If you don’t, that’s
O.K., too,’

	 “‘I will,’ I promised, reading his name and his address in
Astoria. ‘I will.’

	 “‘It’s O.K. if you don’t,’ he repeated.

	 “When I got home a few hours later, I saw my wallet sitting on my
desk. I pulled out two twenties and took an envelope out of my desk. I
looked at the little receipt slip and wrote the driver’s name and
address carefully on the envelope and folded the cash in a piece of
paper.” 2

	 How did Cindy think about that experience? What did she think of it?
Does she still think about? Obviously, she remembered it still a month
ago when she wrote the story of her encounter. I have a strong feeling
that this was, for her, a face-to-face meeting with God, albeit on the
streets of New York’s boroughs.

	 Her life was transformed by the action of that taxi driver. And,
from everything we heard, the taxi driver was equally transformed.
Other people may see it differently, but, in the faith that repeats He
“for us and for our salvation came to earth”; in THAT faith, I see
God in each of the two who were in that cab, even as it was caught in
the bustle and noise of traffic in New York City.

	 THIS is why Jesus, God’s Son, came to earth. THIS is why Jesus was
transfigured before three of the disciples. THIS is why we still read
and listen to the account, told this week in the version found in the
Gospel according to Luke. THIS is our primer. We are to hold on to the
faith that, at least once in our lives, and possibly many times,
someone will shine with such beauty of action, and behaviour, and
speech, that we too will be transfigured, made beautiful by and for
God.

	 This is NOT beyond our means. All God asks is that we keep alert for
the signs God leaves around us, so that our hope will always be
renewed. All that God asks is that we too may be open and willing to
be the receptacle for that spark to flow from us, so that others too
may find their lives transformed.

	 God came to earth as Jesus in order to help us see just how
incredible is God’s beauty, which is shared with us. God came to
earth! Come, let us adore God! But, not to box God up, let us adore
God by sharing, by seeing, by believing, by acting, by, with, and for
the transfigured and the transfiguring Jesus. God’s glory is with
us.

	NOTES:

	[1] “_Transfiguration” - _Unknown Icon Master, 16th Century,
Hermitage Monastery
http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_67519/Russian-Unknown-Masters/Icon-of-the-Transfiguration-%2816th-century%29
[1] Wikigallery - Icon of the Transfiguration (16th century) - Russian
Unknown ... [2] 

	2 _“__Lucky Break on a Rough Morning [3]_.” By CINDY AUGUSTINE
Metropolitan Diary, The New York Times, 6th July, 2017
http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=pMJKdIFVI6pghfX2HXfSzxRpdoyDWYNW0pv0kfxuasWsqgvMKdm6i1Pn91ln+TnU5RycfrCbcUHZ1
[4]

	PBi47w7szmJVIEYJ1aGi69iWf8M5A4+KCrHU4zA1tpp8SrcraKCrtZH37GTvXpvIK0ZzgmlxbEsOgs7gwaKRVP

	LHLSZPol3crLwmEq4GYXtUlb+33yfmiIziuLB/YY=&campaign_id=61&instance_id=99690&segment_id=

	110183&user_id=13776d46e58cd1c84bbfacad680c03b7&regi_id=63205127

	 

Links:
------
[1]
http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_67519/Russian-Unknown-Masters/Icon-of-the-Transfiguration-%2816th-century%29
[2]
http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_67519/Russian-Unknown-Masters/Icon-of-the-Transfiguration-%2816th-century%29
[3]
http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=pMJKdIFVI6pghfX2HXfSzxRpdoyDWYNW0pv0kfxuasWsqgvMKdm6i1Pn91ln+TnU5RycfrCbcUHZ1PBi47w7szmJVIEYJ1aGi69iWf8M5A4+KCrHU4zA1tpp8SrcraKCrtZH37GTvXpvIK0ZzgmlxbEsOgs7gwaKRVPLHLSZPol3crLwmEq4GYXtUlb+33yfmiIziuLB/YY=&campaign_id=61&instance_id=99690&segment_id=110183&user_id=13776d46e58cd1c84bbfacad680c03b7&regi_id=63205127
[4]
http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=pMJKdIFVI6pghfX2HXfSzxRpdoyDWYNW0pv0kfxuasWsqgvMKdm6i1Pn91ln+TnU5RycfrCbcUHZ1PBi47w7szmJVIEYJ1aGi69iWf8M5A4+KCrHU4zA1tpp8SrcraKCrtZH37GTvXpvIK0ZzgmlxbEsOgs7gwaKRVPLHLSZPol3crLwmEq4GYXtUlb+33yfmiIziuLB/YY=&campaign_id=61&instance_id=99690&segment_id=110183&user_id=13776d46e58cd1c84bbfacad680c03b7&regi_id=63205127

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