In 1993, I attended a week-end event for women at Naramata Centre. The theme for the weekend was "Sacred Garden" and it was advertized as being an opportunity to gather with other women and explore the sacred in our lives. While I was at this event, I participated in a guided meditation. The goal in guided meditations is to relax and let thoughts and images come to you naturally without forcing them, while a facilitator gently guides you verbally through the process. So, after the usual relaxing techniques, with soft music playing in the background, I was asked to imagine a special place, a Sacred Garden, where I felt particularly close to God. This place could be somewhere that exists in reality or only in my imagination. I toured the garden in my mind, noticing details about the environment there. Then I was told that wisdom was present in the garden and that I would recognize it. I was surprised when I saw a small child. I could tell that it was a little girl but I couldn't see her face because her back was to me. Then slowly, she turned her head and when I saw her face I was shocked to recognize that it was my face, the way I looked as a small child — I still get emotional when I think about that experience. It is as fresh and clear to me now as when it happened seventeen years ago. It was a very profound experience but also confusing. I didn't know exactly what it meant but I knew it was important. I felt an incredible sense of awe and the presence of the Holy Spirit during this experience. After the meditation was over I was unable to speak about the experience right away. I felt a profound feeling of love and peace, a warmth that felt comforting and empowering. I don't know if my face glowed or not but I would be surprised if it did not.

That experience was a turning point in my life. I believe it was this experience that enabled me to begin to recognize God's Spirit working not just around me but within me. It was a transformative experience, one which opened my eyes and heart to realize that there was wisdom within me that I had never recognized or acknowledged before. Life would never again be the same for me. It was the beginning of being open to the possibility that I had something significant to offer in God's service. I'm sure it was no coincidence that it was later that same weekend I first felt call to ordered ministry.

I think Peter, James, and John were similarly in a state of awe and confusion about their experience of Jesus' transfiguration. (The word transfiguration simply means a change in form or appearance; a transformation. In religious terms this transformation is an outward manifestation of an inward change caused by a profound experience of God.) Peter, James and John, witnessed something they did not understand but was an experience that would remain vivid in their lives and be a source of understanding and inspiration for them in the difficult days to come.

Another personal experience which has had a profound effect on my life, and my understanding of Christ's presence in the ordinary everyday occurrences of life, happened when I was in the midst of my theological studies. I am a person who is nurtured by the natural world around me; birdsong and forests, lakes and rivers feed my soul and ground me with a sense of God's presence. So, keeping this in mind, you can understand that spending weeks at a time in downtown Toronto during the first few years of my theological studies was difficult for me. During that time, I spent every available moment in whatever greenspace I could find listening to the sounds of nature and trying to ignore the sound of traffic. One particular experience of Toronto stands out in my mind. It had been an almost overwhelming time of busyness in my life with a lot happening both personally and educationally. There were many demands on my time and I remember feeling harried and stressed as I rushed out, into the streets of Toronto, not to find greenspace but to find the perfect gift for my daughter who would be celebrating her 18th birthday while I was away. I was feeling exhausted, and guilty for missing yet another special occasion, and I was definitely not in a good mood. I didn't have much time and I was rushing back to school after an unsuccessful shopping expedition when, out of the corner of my eye I saw a streetperson sitting on the sidewalk where I would soon pass. Normally, I am a patient and compassionate person but on this day I was filled with my own thoughts and worries and I was in a foul mood. I was walking swiftly and was just about to walk past the man when I heard a gruff voice say, "Hi sweetheart!". I bristled at his familiarity but the surprise of hearing his voice caught me off guard and I hesitated a moment. In those few seconds of hesitation, just when I had decided to ignore him and carry on, he said to me, "Don't worry! Have a good weekend!". At this point I was really off balance but still expected his next words to be about loose change. To my surprise he didn't say anything else and didn't indicate he wanted anything from me. Then a glorious smile radiated across his face. It was a glow that seemed to come from within and illuminate his whole being. I'd never experienced anything quite like it before but at that moment I had the profound feeling of looking into the face of Christ and of being blessed.

When I returned to school, my classmates noticed immediately that I was changed and I told them about my experience.

This ordinary experience had a very powerful effect on me and produced, in me, a profound understanding of the embodiment of Christ in the world in a way that intellectual learning had never created. Since that time I have never doubted that Christ is present in our world, sometimes hidden in plain sight, in the ordinariness of our daily lives. I have also come to understand the transformative effect of experiences of the divine presence both in the beauty of God's creation and in the everyday joys and difficulties of the human condition.

Peter, James and John, knew this very well. They gloried in the joys of mountaintop prayer, and mystical experience, but they knew they couldn't stay there sheltered from the hardships of the world. After their mystical experience of Jesus' transfiguration, Luke tells us that the next day, they followed Jesus down the mountain and were immediately faced with the pain and suffering of the world.

And, as Peter, James and John discovered, mountaintop experiences, which have an extraordinary and profound effect on the way we experience life, are often very difficult to talk about. Today's gospel story tells us that Peter, James and John "kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen." (Luke 9:36)

Will Willimon, theologian and professor at Duke University, once said that "in a survey of Roman Catholic people in the United States that the majority of those surveyed had had at least one life-changing mystical experience in their life that they had never told anyone about." (Epiphany Explorations Symposium, Victoria, January 24, 2004) This is not surprising since it is difficult to explain, with the mere language, the inexpressible sense of experiencing God's transformative presence.

Whether we are able to explain the experiences of God's presence which inspire and motivate our actions, or not, we are still called to show God's presence in the ways of justice and compassion. Like the disciples, we are called to carry our sense of awe with us down the mountain and to live our faith, in ministry with others, in the everyday experiences of our lives.

As we prepare to walk, through Lent and Holy Week, together as a community of faith, we remember that Peter will, in fear of his own life, deny knowing Jesus and that none of those who experienced the awe and wonder of Jesus' transfiguration will stay beside him during his crucifixion. But, in spite of their shortcomings the disciples did, sometimes with much prodding, recognize the risen Christ in their midst in many and varied ways and their lives were transformed by their experiences of faith. And, despite their fears, they did find the courage to maintain communities of faith centred around their experiences of Jesus' worldly ministry and inspired by the living Christ in their midst.

So, as we leave the mountain top experience of the Season of Epiphany, and walk down the mountain and into the harsh realities of Lent and Holy Week, may we be strengthened knowing that Christ walks with us every step of the way.

Thanks be to God,
for the blessing of rising each new day
knowing that we are loved and blessed
and that in the mystery of faith
there is always the promise of new life.