Transfiguration

A favorite overlook from a nearby mountain.
Today's feast of the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36) got me thinking about God's presence sometimes shining out of someone or some place.  Jesus was God, but looked like other men that Peter, James, and John knew.  Suddenly on the mountain his Divinity shines through and from a cloud the apostles hear God's voice.
It made me think of Thomas Merton's "Louisville Epiphany" which he describes in Confessions of a Guilty Bystander: "In Louisville at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the middle of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.  It was like waking from a dream of separateness....
"Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of  their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes.  If only they could see themselves as they really are.  If only we could see each other that way all the time.  There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed...I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other."
These glimpses into the other world, into Love who is woven into and through our world, are precious gifts.  Prayer sharpens our eyes and gets us ready when suddenly there's God.