Transfiguration

In honor of the Feast of the Transfiguration, I'd like to share a poem by Madeleine L'Engle with you.  It's from Glimpses of Grace, a book of daily readings with passages taken from a great variety of her writing: poetry to memoir to A Wrinkle in Time.  

    Transfiguration

    Suddenly they saw him the way he was,

    the way he really was all the time,

    although they had never seen it before,

    the glory which blinds the everyday eye

    and so becomes invisible. This is how

    He was, radiant, brilliant, carrying joy

    like a flaming sun in his hands.

    This is the way he was – is – from the beginning,

    and we cannot bear it. So he manned himself,

    came manifest to us; and there on the mountain

    they saw him, really saw him, saw his light.

    We all know that if we really see him we die.

    But isn’t that what is required of us
    Then, perhaps, we will see each other, too.

 

I wish I could paint this poem. A different sort of icon: Jesus "carrying joy / like a flaming sun in his hands."

And then, somehow, to paint the hope of learning, all of us, really to see each other. A prayer for today, indeed.