Amy Frykholm has written a reflection for Today – Transfiguration Sunday. Entitled “Illuminating the Ordinary”, she writes about a poem by Christian Wiman. “Wiman, begins the poem in a reduced state, a state in which he is unable to believe in anything, except what he calls the “truth of grieving.” [This is a man] who has described coming to Christianity as “color slowly aching into things, the world becoming brilliantly, abradingly alive,” [But he’s not there at the beginning of this poem. Here he grief overwhelms. Here he acknowledges himself stuck inside the truth of grieving. This is what] is ordinary for him, an old habit.... Looking out his window, he sees something that at first appears impossible: “a tree inside a tree/rise kaleidoscopically,” as if leaves hidden inside the seemingly barren tree had suddenly taken flight. He feels, in a moment, like he is seeing the spirit of the tree, like he can see beyond it. “Of course,” he writes, he knows the tree is just a tree, and that the “leaves” are birds suddenly taking flight.
“And yet” Frykholm writes, “the event changes his perception. The ordinary world is fuller, more real, endowed with some “excess/of life.” [Wiman] understands that he is participating in the creation of this image, that his mind has helped to create a transfigured understanding. But he resists the idea that this is a sufficient explanation for what he has seen. Instead, he says, the life perceived through the tree and birds is larger than he is and is connected to the holy. When he recognizes this series of connections, he experiences joy. His perspective has shifted — the limits with which he begins the poem have become something else entirely.” [1]
“From a window”
by Christian Wiman[2].
Incurable and unbelieving
In any truth but the truth of grieving,
I saw a tree inside a tree
Rise kaleidoscopically
As if the leaves had livelier ghosts.
I pressed my face as close
To the pane as I could get
To watch that fitful, fluent spirit
That seemed a single being undefined
Or countless beings of one mind
Haul its strange cohesion
Beyond the limits of my vision
Over the house heavenwards.
Of course I knew those leaves were birds.
Of course that old tree stood
Exactly as it had and would
(But why should it seem fuller now?)
And though a man’s mind might endow
Even a tree with some excess
Of life to which a man seems witness,
That life is not the life of men.
And that is where the joy came in.
Wiman’s poem resonates with a message I received this week from Geoff King, minister of Knox Church, Christchurch. After what must have been one of the most stressful weeks Geoff has experienced, he describes how he was out walking with his dog, wondering what to say to his homeless congregation as they join with others today in another church building – one not blown apart by the quaking, shaking earth. Geoff writes:
The birds were back this morning.
I could hear one or two of them singing
As silt-laden wind chased the dog and me around our broken streets.
The birds were back, and with them the song of something other than sirens
Or the low-pitched rumble of an earthquake,
Or the terrified screams of fleeing lunchtime shoppers
Or the muffled sobs of brave and bewildered men, women and children
Trying unsuccessfully to fight back tears.
The birds were back,
and as the sun strove vainly to pierce the swirling cloud of pulverised masonry and liquefaction
their song sounded
a
bit
like
hope.[3]
‘Colour – slowly aching into things’ ... a bit like hope ...a transfiguration ... a shifting of perspective, a moment when hearts and minds, eyes and ears are invited – perhaps even challenged to see beyond, into what is, from a different viewpoint, quite unbelievable: the Holy Presence – the mysterious Life Force of the cosmos: the Transfiguration of Jesus – the transfiguration we experience in our everyday lives, reminding us that joy can be experienced – even from ‘the truth of grieving”; that hope does come again.
In our present age saturated with information technology, exploding with scientific discovery, we are reminded again and again how new possibilities continually blossom – springing out of ignorance, darkness, hopelessness – bringing light. We are surrounded by epiphany-aha, moments, where light bursts through, changing our lives forever. Mountain tops aren’t the only places from which new viewpoints can arise – but within our faith tradition, they have come to symbolise those peak experiences of enlightenment. It is from such accounts, and our own life experiences, that we draw meaning for our faith journeys.
Many of these experiences go way beyond our limited ability to explain with words – we resort to poetry, music, the arts to describe that which cannot be encapsulated. This morning’s gospel is an attempt to describe the indescribable. Remember, as with all the Gospel, this account was written as an attempt to explain the unexplainable – an attempt to describe the joy, possibility and transformation that Jesus brought into an aching world: a story of wild hope and astounding love – that flourished – even after cruel betrayal, torture and murder. In looking back, post crucifixion, post resurrection, post Pentecost, Jesus’ disciples remember those mountain-top indescribable experiences they had with him, which transformed their lives forever. But, we must never forget, that the understanding of this transfiguring power emerges out of deep pain. It is no coincidence that, as the gospel writers put their story together, this transfiguration account is bookended with Jesus’ deeply distressing reminders to his friends that he will suffer and die.
Today, the church celebrates the Transfiguration of Jesus to remind us of how God continually breaks into our lives. Over the last few weeks, through the season of Epiphany, we’ve tried to heighten our awareness: with the increasing light of candles, we’ve symbolised how the choices we make can make a difference to the way in which Christ’s light breaks into the world. With each choice for Christ’s way – over against the ways of self-serving greed – we continue to embody – to incarnate – the enlightening, flourishing and transforming, kin-dom of God.
Today, on this transition Sunday between Epiphany and Lent, we find a marker, a sign-post on our journey with Jesus. With the disciples we open our eyes, our ears and our hearts, to see Jesus and the ancestors of our faith – to hear the voice of God – reminding us of faith, hope and love – even on the toughest of journeys. This is not the place to stop – it’s a marker that reminds and sends us on. Like the memorial cairn being built on the communion table in the chapel, we have reached a boundary point where we remember what has happened and now know that life can never be the same. And so, down the mountain we will go, into Lent, carrying hope in our hearts - even in the midst of brokenness, heart-ache and deep pain - knowing that if we should open our eyes we will see “color [is] slowly aching into things, the world becoming brilliantly, abradingly alive”.
[1] “Illuminating the Ordinary: Transfiguration Day” Amy Frykholm http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs
[2] From Christian Wiman, Every Riven Thing (2010), http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/09/17/poetry-reading-by-christian-wiman/
[3] “Beyond the cordon” Email communication from Rev. Dr. Geoff King, Knox Church Christchurch, to electronic groups NZPres and NewThing, March 2, 2011.
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