Dana, our spiritual teacher and prayer leader, invited our little mission group to go with her to Sugarloaf Mountain for an afternoon hike. Judith, Angela and I eagerly said yes. We found a lovely spot to rest and take in the view. Mary and Gordon Cosby suddenly appeared out of thin air. They began speaking with Dana, with love and adoration. We saw Dana’s appearance begin to change, transformed by radiant light swirling all around and through her. Dazzled and overwhelmed, we sat down on the rocks, speechless. Then we heard another voice, warm and commanding, “Listen to her for she is my beloved. Remember her teachings, and never forget her.” Soon after, Mary and Gordon vanished from our sight and Dana looked like her usual self. She urged us not to speak about this experience. Well, how could we? Who would believe us? But we held it in our hearts and will never forget.
By now, reader, you probably know this is something I imagined while pondering the story of the transfiguration.* It’s important to note that just before Jesus went up the mountain with Peter, James, and John, he told them that they must lose their lives, for his sake, in order to find true life. That relinquishment, he said, could not happen until they had seen the kingdom of God come in power. Then they went up the mountain and saw that divine kin-dom revealed in the mystical now.
My imagined experience brought that home. Imagine your own version. And remember your mystical experiences of unity with God. There is another reality that is unlimited. Once seen, the truth of life is forever changed. There are no time or spatial boundaries in the Eternal One. Contemplative prayer continues to open me to this awareness. And reveal God’s transforming power in everyday life. Relinquishing self and life is key. The kin-dom of God is at hand.
--Ann Dean, Dayspring Church
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For further reflection, read The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, by Dorothee Soelle. She writes, Spiritual freedom occurs when we become aware of our limits through leaving them behind…. Lived immanence is not what is left behind for the sake of a fantastic transcendence; rather, a new relation of transcendence and immanence is sought after wherein immanence is no longer too dense, too sealed up, and beyond reproducing itself in a trivial round. It is to be an immanence that opens itself to transcendence and takes part in it. (Pp. 28-29)
