Exodus 24:12-18
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9
Something called the sleeper to wakefulness
to stand outside in the hour before dawn;
large flecks of snow arrowing out of the inky sky
looming suddenly, then swerving past.
They shush the interior chatter: “Be still.”
And as the unclad trees glow from within
the snow twines about like maypole ribbons
to communicate the wisdom each flake has drawn into itself
before vanishing when earth is met.
The creation light within each trunk
transfigures scrub oak to holy sentinels:
that light breathing in tree and stone and witness.
And the warmth of God’s pleasure stirs within the firs.
What is the origin of this light?
The forest switched on like Christmas trees,
vividly living against the night,
and the dark, silken, stars beyond a veil of cloud overhead.
They say when Moses was pulled up the holy mountain,
each cell vibrating and dancing like iron shavings over a magnet,
God’s glory rested upon the peak like wildfire cloud, and
he alighted face alit, God’s glow clinging to him like a shout. And when Jesus
took James, John, and Peter atop another, no less holy, prominence,
that fire, and that sacred love, came down,
and settled within and burst beyond that familiar, beloved body.
Jesus glowed like a sun, the true morning star
that guides weary wanderers home.
The air sizzled with God’s love,
stripping his friends of words but filling them with wonder.
The mountain can provide both a vista
and a frank reminder of the valleys that lie among us:
Jesus’s glory bursts forth from him,
twining around his friends and dazzling their hearts,
but the light has been there all the time.
God’s spark with our heart likewise stirs,
and the holy atoms dance.
-- Leslie Barnes Scoopmire
This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on February 16, 2023.
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