In the Christian gospels, there are stories about the two occasions when Jesus invited his closest friends to share in his most intimate prayer: (1) on the mountain of Transfiguration, where Jesus glowed with divine light; and (2) in the garden of Gethsemane, right before his arrest, trial and execution.
The disciples didn't do a particularly good job of sharing Jesus' prayer on either occasion. After the Transfiguration, they wanted to build a silly monument. In the garden of Gethsemane, they fell asleep. But God works with what we give God. In these dramatic days of covid-19, Trump and Black Lives Matter, we have both Transfiguration moments and Gethsemane moments.
There are those moments of Transfiguration, when I feel like I am in the flow – alive, interconnected with all of life. Some of that is simply spontaneous, usually grounded in gratitude. Some of it is structured.
Back when we could take Eucharist into the local women's prison, we had a liturgy of blessing whenever one of our residents was set to leave. The liturgy spoke of the journey, the growth and the relationships forged in this time apart. To close the blessing prayer, we borrowed a line from Henri Nouwen: "From now on wherever you are and wherever you go, all of the ground between us will be holy ground." That blessing was invariably a Transfiguration experience.
At the beginning of the pandemic, we seemed to embrace a common identity and struggle: "We are all in this together." After the knee-on-neck street-crucifixion of George Floyd, multi-racial demonstrations arose across the nation demanding that we address our original sin of racism. There was much Transfiguring light within these movements. There is holy ground between us. But it takes energy, love and a commitment to non-violence to sustain such movements over time. The government attack in front of St. John's Episcopal Church was a Gethsemane moment.
With a narcissist in the White House, I find myself struggling with perpetual hostility, putting myself to sleep with fantasies imagining how to correct this parade of errors. The Psalms give voice to my anguish and anger. Sometimes to my hope.
Retirement has allowed me the regular daily practice of an hour of contemplative silent prayer. Sometimes I fall asleep like the garden-variety disciples. Too often, I invent phrases for this newspaper column that will convict the hearts of readers so that Arkansas' electoral votes and its legislators will cease to abet foolishness. Waste and folly. Sleep is better.
But sometimes, I stay there, open to the Divine Mystery. Sometimes God breathes me into being. Sometimes I disappear into a nothingness that is everything. I never know quite what has happened when I emerge into "normal" consciousness, but I trust that it is for good. Martin Luther's said, "Grace is the experience of being delivered from experience."
In the valley of the shadow of covid-19, I'm trying to get more comfortable with the upcoming experience of my death. Sometimes when I'm particularly distracted in prayer, I imagine myself in my hospice bed, unable to speak or act, the "to do list" ended, just waiting in oblation. That often helps me to get quiet. And it does seem wise to practice dying.
But while the breath is still in me, how can the daily experience of both the glory and the threat become a healing context for living in this conflicted world in a more wholesome way? Compassion. Love. Hope. At moments I seem to grasp something, or intuit it. But then Trump just ticks me off again. And of course whenever he's gone, something else will replace him.
Rise up, O Holy One;
lift up your hand, O God;
do not forget the afflicted...
Surely, you behold trouble and misery;
you see it and take it into your own hand.
The helpless commit themselves to you,
for you are the helper of orphans.
Break the power of the wicked and evil;
search out their wickedness until you find none.
God is sovereign for ever and ever;
the ungodly shall perish from the land.
God will hear the desire of the humble;
you will strengthen their heart and your ears shall hear,
To give justice to the orphan and oppressed,
so that mere mortals may strike terror no more.
-- Psalm 10:12, 14-19
"Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts ..."
-- Romans 5:3b-5a
Light and darkness. We are all in this together.
Lowell Grisham is a retired Episcopal priest who lives in Fayetteville. Email him at lowellgrisham@gmail.com.