Transfigure ME Lord!

The Transfiguration has always been very meaningful for me. I'd love it to be the day on which I die because its appropriate.  Jesus, you weren't transfigured. The apostles actually were. You'd always been the Son of God and this may have been the point when the guys actually got it .  If there was any doubt before , the Father's proud voice broke thru it.  "This is My Son!"  Your three best friends are thunder struck. The Rock , Peter, turns into a fountain of ideas.  They get it!

I wish I did.

I'd love to be transfigured from who I am into who I could be, who You created me to be. No mountain or blazing white light needed, Lord. My brain and my ego just need to cooperate with my heart and soul. I want to,I really do. I want to do all those things in 1 Cor 13 ( patient,kind , enduring all things) but I just don't do it. Like St Paul "I do the very things that I hate."  What is needed for my transfiguration to finally happen?  Do I need to be thunderstruck too?  Go for it God! Teach me how to be more like you.   Amen

...and I don't like your hair-do!

If “where there is peace there is God” then where there is no peace there is the absence of God or the presence of evil. If peace is valuable to me I’ll choose it as my goal even in the midst of chaos and negativity. I will choose to be where God is in situations of stress or illness or financial pressure. I will MAKE my mind be still and non-reactive so as to see the issue or event with God’s eyes. Since I am made in God’s image and likeness it is possible. I received the Holy Spirit and Christ’s actual body in the Eucharist so it is possible for me to swallow my instinctive non peaceful reaction in order to act more like Jesus.


In my professional life I’ve been rejected and in my personal life too. Someone betrayed a confidence. Someone doesn’t like my way of doing things. Rejection doesn’t come naturally. It’s a blow to the ego. Instinctively my insides begin to churn and my blood pressure goes up. Instinctively –almost without any thought process involved- I become defensive or angry. I immediately look at the person differently, i.e. with judgment. Inside I’m saying “Oh yeah? Well I thought there was something I didn’t like about you. And, by the way, I can’t stand the way you do your hair.” Red flags are waving and if the person persists or says something that hits me to the core, bombs go off in my brain.

                          

 

Is all that from God?

Did the red flags, bad hair comment or exploding bombs come from Jesus Christ? Did God initiate the judgmental thoughts or the defensive reaction? Of course not! Where there is peace, there is God. My really, really hard challenge is to feel my own rising blood pressure and lower it. I don’t have to be that person. I’ve got the Holy Spirit’s guidance and I don’t want to ignore that. I received Eucharist. I have God’s grace. I am made in His likeness. And THIS time is going to be different. THIS time I’m not going to be that defensive person.

While my BP is rising – or if I’ve already failed and given in – I imagine myself on old planet Pluto and watching all this from afar. (Pluto= the rejected planet). Maybe I’ll even hide myself behind my guardian angel’s fluffy wings. I imagine myself physically uninvolved. The person’s lips are moving and the tension is high but I choose not to be there. Let them keep the judgments and words of anger. I just don’t want them. They aren’t God’s so I’m not participating in the process. I take a breath, step back and remove my feelings from the situation.

This is much easier to do in a non-confrontational situation. Those type situations are good for practicing. Anytime of the day I can put myself on un-planet Pluto and observe. I can search out God’s actions in my day from behind fluffy wings, while I take a deep breath. The more I practice the more peace I feel.

Where there is peace there is God. That’s what I want.

For Lent 2013 Be a hole in Gods Flute

"I am a hole in a flute that Christ's breath moves through. Listen to this music."  14th century Persian poet Hafiz

I am not the instrument

I'm not the music

I'm not the breath

I am the hole in the flute only.  I am the absence of something. Ego. Selfishness. Control.

When several such holes in the flute make themselves ready, music results. They allow Christ's breath to pass thru and that makes beautiful music.

If I allow myself to be only a hole in the flute (only yes, but essential for the flute to make music) I can be useful to the Master. If the hole decided to open and close when it wishes it would be useless.
Don't I do that?  Don't I decide when and if I will be available and open to the working of God?

If I allow Gods fingers to manipulate me as he wishes ( why do I internally react "ouch" to that thought?  Don't I trust in his love?) then Gods touch alone makes me useful to him and its nothing i have done. His movement makes me useful to his will despite  how essential I may believe my productivity is.
And Christ's breath passing thru me? Isn't that the Holy Spirit?  I close my eyes and visualize the air in my body filling every space from my skull to my toes. But it's not my own lungs doing  the work. The breath is Gods and it  fills me like gentle CPR. The air comes from Gods lungs into the flute passing thru the emptiness of the hole into the  atmosphere   And in that moment if there is no resistance a musical note is formed. Ahhhhh. Sublime surrender!
Together we become a melody.