Transfiguration Contemplation

Readings for the Transfiguration:
Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Peter 1:13-21; Luke 9:28-36

Today, the Feast of the Transfiguration, is my favorite feast after Easter and Mary Mag Day.  This is the day when Jesus shines forth in glory, just for a moment, just enough to dazzle and baffle the three with him.  This is the day of contemplation.

Since my retreat last month I've been thinking about contemplation, "contemplative life," and contemplative vocation.  For years when people called me "a contemplative," I'd bristle.  I'd object, I'd refuse.  I think I heard "enclosed."  Behind that I heard "lazy" or "selfish."  I'd say we were contemplatives in action, or mixing traditions, or whatever, but I refused the label "contemplative."

Now, I do have problems with nouns.   To call someone "a contemplative" seems too simple and sweeping, like so many labels.  What do you know about someone when you use a noun like that?  What do you overlook or refuse to see, because it doesn't fit the picture you have of that noun?  I still don't want to say "I'm a contemplative."  I'm a beloved child of God who -

has a contemplative vocation.  There, I said it.  I first entered religious life 17 years ago looking to pray, to know God, to share that with others.  I had no sense of ministry beyond that.  It was, I told people, the first really selfish decision I made in my life.  I did not ask what my family would think, what my friends or my mentors would think.  They thought I was crazy.  I didn't ask what would make me financially secure.  I wanted to know God.

So here I sit.  Sometimes I walk, or cook, or eat, or laugh uproariously.  Sometimes I play the drums or sing.  But I pray, in all of these ways and others.  And my world is ordered by the call to pray.  This is what I do.

Contemplation has been described as a long loving look at the real.  The Transfiguration reminds us that the "real" is not just the empirical, the visible or measurable.  The glory of God that lies at the heart of everything is the real.  In contemplation we catch a glimpse of that glory in the midst of the daily.  The glorious dishes.  The glorious bathroom needing cleaning.  The glorious neighbor and glorious enemy.  All is transfigured, showing its glory.

And then a thought comes through: "What's for dinner?"  "When are they going to call me?"  Whatever.  The glory is there too.  I can't stand to be face to face with it for long, but I know it's there.  When I close my eyes I can feel the light on my eyelids.  I breathe in God.  I breathe out peace.   In my little clay jar I carry the light, and I see your light.  And that's enough.