Like sun, but not

The neighbor over the fence just removed some blackberry vines and black locust saplings. I asked whether I could have the locust poles for making walking sticks or chair legs, but he had already carted them away. One benefit of this yardwork is that more sun now comes over the fence earlier in the day. I’m sure the garden bed in the southeast corner will appreciate receiving more light. The shell peas grew fine in the shade. But with the shade and the cool, wet beginning of summer, my squash did not. I planted yellow crookneck twice, and both time eventually dug up the seeds, which appeared to be afflicted with some fungal rot. I’m learning the nuances of how to garden in this yard. To try to remedy the squash situation, once it did germinate, I pulled out the pea trellis, and layed the pea vines along the ground. We will see how the yellow crookneck responds to these new rays of light over the course of August.

really need to weed the quackgrass again huh

We need a ray of life-giving light to illuminate soul and body. Aug 6, the feast of the transfiguration in many church calendars, celebrates just such a reception of light. This feast day celebrates the moment when Jesus brought Peter, James and John along with him to pray on mountain, and these disciples saw Jesus by the new light that was in him. Jesus shared this light with these disciples. It is a light that changed the way they were able to see and been seen. I celebrated an online Eucharist service for this feast day, and those gathered reflected on this moment in scripture together in response to the gospel reading. Among the reflections: It speaks to the way we can see joy in the Lord upon a person’s face as a kind of light. It speaks to the way that such a new sight can’t be readily or immediately spoken about, and takes time to understand and integrate into our lives, or, be integrated by it into a new pattern of life in which we walk with Christ. It speaks of the way Christ brings us into union with himself, sharing the light of God with us, changing the way we are seen and see.

This light is shared with those whom Christ invites into his life of prayer. St Gregory Palamas wrote in a homily for the feast of the Transfiguration that “That same Inscrutable Light shone and was mysteriously manifest to the Apostles and the foremost of the Prophets at that moment, when (the Lord) was praying. This shows that what brought forth this blessed sight was prayer, and that the radiance occured and was manifest by uniting the mind with God, and that it is granted to all who, with constant exercise in efforts of virtue and prayer, strive with their mind towards God. True beauty, essentially, can be contemplated only with a purified mind. To gaze upon its luminance assumes a sort of participation in it, as though some bright ray etches itself upon the face.” (http://orthochristian.com/38767.html)

The vitality of prayer is God, who transforms our senses and heart through it. Without the life of prayer that brings us into communion with Christ, which we cannot see, judge, or act for, toward and in the Kingdom. That sight binds them into the power of the cross and resurrection, and it can’t be readily known or spoken about. Its not a strategic business plan, mastered by managerial technique, or conquered by revolutionary zeal. It’s more the kind of place we enter with God’s still small voice saying ‘do not be afraid.’ How the solidity of earth beneath our feet becomes the light we can trust along the shady path we take down the mountain!

The renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini gives us sight of the transfiguration according to the light of his skill, imagination and vision. He brings the vision given to the disciples of Jesus with Moses and Elijah beautifully to us. I hope you can spend some time prayerfully gazing upon this painting. I will point out just a few things that are moving to me looking at it this time.

By Giovanni Bellini - 1. Oceansbridge2. The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 112975, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20806008

First, since I have locust trees and walking sticks on my mind, I notice anew the three trees in the painting. One standing to the right in the middle ground, beyond Elijah, is in full leaf. Another, to the left of Moses, appears to be leafless or dead. And a third stands in the foreground, clinging to the living earth at the edge of a chalky cliff. The contrast of a living and dead tree stirs much in mind. But for me the tree on the cliff edge draws me in. It appears to have been cut down, or recently and severely pollarded. That is, it may have been cut at one time, and allowed to grow back numerous shoots. Those shoots would be harvested after a few years as useful poles. Maybe the poles for the rail or fence in the foreground (where Bellini hung his signature) came from that pollarded stump.

Second, I notice how the disciples appear to have been cast to the ground. Bellini vividly depicts these three men bowled over by the sight of what they could barely describe and yet had seen. It was like an earthquake, an utter disorientation. One fellow looks almost humously dazed. Clearly enough they say Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus. Moses symbolizes the law. His face glowed with glory after he came down from the mountain when he received the stone tablets, and the people could not bear to see this glory. He went to the mounatin and was taken by God. Elijah called down fire and rain in the land, fled into the wilderness where ravens fed him and he heard God, not in storm or earthquake, but in sheer silence, a still small voice. Elijah ascended into heaven bodily. Jesus unites and rises above these two men in the light and voice he brings to those who follow the God of Moses and Elijah. This scene conveys a quiet, utterly powerful energy. The railing in the foreground could be taken as a caution, and almost a bit of humor between the painter and the viewer, as if to say what unutterable power is on view, therefore take great care, “don’t tell anyone about this vision,”-and don’t fall in!

And finally, I notice the clouds. Of course the gospels speak of a cloud descending upon the scene, as clouds figured in the story of Moses and the people in the wilderness. Clouds are a mystical symbol of the time or season of unknowing, when faith proceeds upon unknown grown, in a new quality of light we must learn to see by. The clouds seem to express this quality of seeing differently, appearing like summer thunderheads in their luminescent blues and grays. I’ve seen thunderheads bright white, black as coal, green like a leaf. And as I look, I see that Jesus’ clothes are of the same color as these clouds. Like the other men we see in the painting, Jesus is clothed, but his clothing is the color of storm clouds lit with blue, electric fire, ineffable light. His central position, and his raiment show him as the one who brings together earth and heaven, and unifies humankind again with God. He renews the light once given, or illuminates with new light, like the sun but not.