August 2021

August 2021

“This is my Son ….. listen to him”

Luke 9.35 (NIV)

The scene is set on a high mountain: the disciples are woken from sleep and see Jesus at prayer in the light of transfiguration.  There are echoes of the words spoken by God at the baptism of Jesus. “You are my Son my Beloved, on you my favour rests” (Luke 3.22)

Peter, James and John are fearful as the cloud enfolds and overshadows them. Fear is the number one emotion here. In his book “Oh God Why?”, Gerard W. Hughes says ‘The human experience of the holiness of God...both attracts and frightens. Peter is attracted and wants the experience to be permanent but he is also frightened and falls to the ground’.

When we are afraid, enfolded in clouds of confusion, we seek reassurance. May we learn to listen more often and more deeply to God's voice. Hughes goes on to say, ‘It is right that we should ask for a glimpse of this glory, so that afterwards, we may know that our present state of perception is distorted, that we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror’.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her poem “Aurora Leigh” also brings us to such a moment. Indeed she takes it further, suggesting that these glimpses of glory are not just a wistful one off in an otherwise empty desert but are richly available to us always and everywhere, if only we have eyes to see and time to stop,

“Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes...”

Our humanity seeks and needs the Divine life. Over the past year, we have lived with life's struggles, pain, despair and grief and we increasingly need glimpses of Divine glory. Our particular way of prayer in the Fellowship is the prayer of listening, but we may easily miss opportunities to put it into practice, all the day long.

There are messages of love and glimpses of glory around us every day, that carry us on our way. In them we will find a deep, inner peace to support and sustain us through the days ahead.