We've all had those mountain top times in which we experience something beyond "good," beyond what we expect, beyond what we even imagine. We've all had those rare but beautiful times when it feels that our lives have been, for a moment, in a "thin" place, a place where the "veil between heaven and earth" or rather, the separation between what is true and good and profound from what is mundane and daily and "life" simply thins out. These are times when we glimpse what is important, what is real at a whole other level, when we touch the Divine in a way that brings tears to our eyes, changes our breathing, affects our whole perspective on our lives and for a moment feels that it will never let us go back to what we once were.
The transfiguration story was such a moment. The disciples were given a vision: they saw Jesus transformed and Moses and Elijah appeared and were speaking with Jesus on a mountain top. Their response was to say "let us build three shelters here for the three of you!" They did not want the experience to simply be over: they did not want the vision to end. It needed to be marked, somehow, with something special and concrete, something that was not the vision but was tangible. They wanted a way to stay in the moment, or to at least a doorway to be able to return to it.
Again, this is familiar. When we have those moments, those "mountain top experiences", those highs, we want to mark them, to make them concrete. We want to be permanently changed by the experiences in a way that lets the world know what has happened, that shares it. We want to be able to return to that place within and without where we touched something beyond ourselves. Given the chance, we would never leave.
But that is not what happens. We do leave the mountain top. We have to descend back into the daily hum drum of life. We have our routines, we have people who need us, we have our work and our household chores and our relationships. All of these require attention that bring us back from those highs and push us to return to who we were, at least in the day to day scheme of things.
In light of this, how do we hold on to a piece of what we experienced? How do we allow those highs to change us, affect us, make in us something new?
For the last two weeks, David and I had the incredible privilege and joy of being able to go to Scotland for a belated honeymoon. I will not make this into a travel log post, though at some point I may write one. What I will say is that it was wonderful. We were able to see many Scottish beauties and to participate in many interesting events. We travelled mostly around to the islands off the mainland of Scotland and stayed, most of the time, in smaller villages. We saw castles and estates and standing stones, the National Piping Center, a sheepdog demonstration, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. We experienced a traditional Scottish meal with entertainment of singing and performing. We travelled with two different tours, met very interesting people, heard much about Scottish history and Scottish culture, heard traditional and new Scottish music, saw the bagpipes play many times, and connected with people in meaningful and wonderful ways.
But to say all of that is to miss out on the depth of the experience, at least for me. The depth of the experience connected for me much more to things like the weather (which was wonderful for us), and the incredible beauty of the highlands and the gardens and nature. It was about being in places that meant something to David and I - a cemetery with the names of family for David, and Iona with all that it represents in terms of faith and spirituality for me. It was about walking and smelling the smells of Scotland, breathing in the air of history and story and deep connection. It was a beautiful, meaningful and wonderful couple of weeks. To talk about it at all feels like cheapening and lessening the experience somehow... moving it out of the realm of the magical and spiritual, and into the realm of a vacation or a trip, a fun time that we were given, in order to celebrate our marriage.
I've returned then wondering how to share, what to say, and how to communicate in any way what we experienced. I've returned wondering if the time away can be allowed to change me for the better, and if so, what that looks like and why. I've returned with more questions than I had before I left, more unresolved wonderings, and a stronger sense of the restlessness that my life produces in me regularly.
And as I've sat with this mountain top experience, I think my response to it has to, as ever, begin with simple gratitude: gratitude for the time, gratitude for the space, and gratitude for the experiences. I think it is that gratitude that must deepen as I reflect on what lessons I will carry from that time away. I also hope it will help me to remember when I am struggling or feeling low that life comes with ebbs and flows, highs and lows. I've had extremes at both ends. But that, too, just invites fuller living and a deeper sense of possibility within me for growing, seeing, becoming what I hope to be. I do not know where all of this will take me. But perhaps the "high", the "mountain top" is just a new beginning, and an invitation to see where my next steps will lead, both within and without. It is an opening up of the spirit so that what is deep and real may blow inside my being with each new breath. I will write more as I learn. But for today, I sit in the gratitude and am thankful for the space to remember, to reflect, and to breath in experiences of joy, light, and love.
Thanks be to God!
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