He is the Radiance of the Father.

Icon of the Transfiguration, Sinai, 12th century

It's been four years since I first posted these thoughts on the Feast of the Transfiguration, and I'm finding them worth considering afresh. May He Who is the Radiance of the Father shine on and in us.

Light and Love

This quote was brought to my attention today, on the eve of the Feast of the Transfiguration.

St. Macarius of Optina:

None of your suffering has come by chance. Nothing can happen to us without our Lord's consent; and His consent is not only wise but always dictated by His love of us. Carefully examine your conscience and your life, and I am sure you will understand what I mean. Sorrow weighs you down? Never mind. The grateful heart, humble and wise - the heart which has become grateful, humble, and wise - will be greatly consoled and blessed with serene joy.

As I was looking for an icon of this feast, I ran across a phrase "transfiguration of suffering," and I realized that--of course--these thoughts are connected. As I have heard regarding Orthodox theology from the beginning, it's difficult to put it into a systematic theology, because "everything is connected to everything else." God won't be boxed into our human and finite categories.

Just as Christ was revealed in all his glory, as much as the disciples could bear, that is, so every Christian has the potential to shine with the light of the Holy Spirit. Suffering can be used as a tool to accomplish this, as we see in the lives of many of God's people. One person who comes to mind is Father Arseny, whose life of suffering in the last century one can read in two books of firsthand accounts. Reading about him, I caught a vision of what it might mean to be truly a Christian, a "little Christ." There is a short review of the books about him here.

I have little suffering to bear, but if I do accept it with thanksgiving and patience, it might make me more able to show forth His light and love. This is a good thing to keep in mind and heart for the Feast.

Trace Him by the branches.

Many months ago when it was my birthday, I received from my husband a book of the works of John Donne, poetry and prose and sermons. On a recent trip we had listened to a Mars Hill Audio Journal CD that included an interview about him, with the always fascinating Dana Gioia. I've been perusing the book since then and have found many good and juicy snippets, such as this:

Acknowledg God to be the Author of thy Being; find him so at the spring-head, and then thou shalt easily trace him, by the branches, to all that belongs to thy well-being. The Lord of Hosts, and the God of peace, the God of the mountaines, and the God of the valleyes, the God of noone, and of midnight, of all times, the God of East and West, of all places, the God of Princes, and of Subjects, of all persons, is all one and the same God; and that which we intend, when we say Iehovah, is all Hee.

--John Donne 1572-1631, Sermons V

St. Panteleimon

St. Panteleimon had studied medicine, but it was by the miraculous powers of Christ that he healed many people whom the doctors had not been able to help. He was martyred in 304 after the jealous doctors denounced him as a Christian.

We remembered him with hymns in church today, the same morning that the gospel passage recounted Christ's healing of the Gadarene maniacs. In both cases the earthly powers did not rejoice that the sick had been made whole, or that God was present and active in their midst. Their spiritual eyes were so clouded over that they completely missed the blessing. Lord, have mercy!

I love this painting of St. Panteleimon that Leah posted last week.

St Panteleimon the Healer by Nikolay Roerich

The Neighboring Sea

For a few years of my life I lived a few blocks from the beach near Santa Barbara, California, but my world was so full of other kinds of excitement in those days that I gave very little thought to my neighboring kingdom. It pains me at this stage of life to think what I missed by not spending more time at the ocean's edge or at least gazing from the cliffs.

I'm reminded of that experience when reading Anne Porter's description in this poem. In the wee hours she is "remembering" what must have been as near in the daytime, just at the end of the street. It's from her collection Living Things, which was given to me at Christmas. My husband read this poem first and shared it with me only this morning. Devils-apron is a type of kelp.

The Neighboring Sea

At three in the morning the village is all in silence
But the silence is afloat on the roar of the sea
And all the streets are bathed in the roar of the sea
The waves are at their labors
Cresting and flooding all along the shore
Tumbling and spinning the kelp and the devils-apron
Threshing to meal the morsels and crumbs of stone
And the light seashells with their storm-blue linings.

This is the time of day when I remember
That down at the end of the street there is an ocean
A Nation of fishes and whales
A sky-colored country stretching from here to Spain
A liquid kingdom dragged about by the moon.

Anne Porter

Ke'anae Peninsula, Maui

My gleanings include rubbish and pies.

I guess I've had enough time and thinking power this week to read and ponder, but my activities didn't result in anything of my own to posit or report, so I'll just pass on some recent gleanings.

Women Priests?  I love it when a reviewer is bold enough to say "This book is rubbish." Honesty and confidence! Although, if that's all she can say, she won't get a hearing; I want to hear reasons for her belief. I just read this blog post titled "Merlin Stone's book is rubbish", and though I had never heard the author's name before I immediately wanted to read that article.

It's a brief review of  When God Was a Woman, which the blogger first had to read in seminary years ago. She writes, "There is neither historical nor anthropological support for her thesis that the Hebrews suppressed goddess worship. She tries to prove that the Canaanites had a matriarchial and matrilineal structure. She is wrong on both counts." Go to the blog Just Genesis to read the supporting details. The writer always has lots of fascinating historical and archeological knowledge to pass on.

Pies, pies, pies... Three women collaborated on a book, which as soon as I read about it I had to have sent as a birthday gift for my granddaughter. It may be a bit early for her, but I like to encourage little girls to start taking a creative role in the kitchen and to look to real grownups for inspiration.

The book is Pieography, written by Jo Packham, Food Styling by Anne Marie Klaske, Photography by Traci Thorson. All of these women have blogs; Jo and Traci feature photos of some pies, but I think you have to get the book if you want the recipes and stories.

I haven't seen the book yet, but I've enjoyed Anne Marie's blog in particular. The clean and elegant style is nice to surf around in and see snippets of the Klaske Family's farm life. On Thursdays you can get inspired to bake pies!

Death of the Old Man:  Father Stephen Freeman shared a link to his daughter's blog, on St. John of the Cross and the loss of identity, or the Dark Night of the Soul, or the "death of the old man." Actually the subtitle of the post is "The Loss and Discovery of our Identity in God" (italics mine), so it ends on a very positive note, to be sure.

She writes, "If we had always thought of the death of our old man as purely symbolic, it may come as something of a shock to think of real pain being involved. But when our turn inevitably comes to go through pain or tragedy, then we may take comfort in knowing that many have travelled down this path before us."

Icons and Images:  A book on the history of the use and theology of images in Jewish culture and in the church is the subject of this blog post on Orthodox-Reformed Bridge. Early Christian Attitudes Toward Images is written by Stephen Bigham, and a series of four blog posts is planned to review the book. This structure follows the organization of the book:

The book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 deals with the “hostility theory” which holds that the early Christians were hostile toward images. Chapter 2 deals with early Jewish attitudes toward images. Chapter 3 deals with the early Christian attitudes towards images, that is, the pre-Constantinian period. Chapter 4 deals with Eusebius of Caesarea who witnessed the beginning of Constantinian era.

The author is an Orthodox priest, and the blogger Robert Arakaki was Reformed in his theology before converting to Orthodoxy. I'm looking forward to reading all the reviews of what looks to be a thorough treatment of the subject.

Beethoven in Space:  Lastly, here's a music video featuring Hubble images and beautiful music. A blessed weekend to you all!

I'll tell you about the stars.

The stars made the biggest impression on me, this time at the mountain cabin by the lake, but not in the usual way.

Normally what strikes me at such a high elevation is the brightness, how the Milky Way is huge and obvious, and how even my weak eyes can see the Pleiades. But last week the moon stole the show with its competing lumens. I'll have more to say about the stars later.

Just below the place that was too steep for my timidity...

Tall and Short climb Gumdrop.

We had friends with us whom I'll call Tall and Short. They are good sports and happy campers, very resourceful and cheerful when challenges arise. I will only tell you about the most fun challenge, of climbing Gumdrop Dome. I failed to surmount it for the third year in a row, and after I gave up I walked around the base to meet the others coming down the other side.
 
 


Of course I found a new plant on my walk, something that looks like a fern and a succulent at the same time, and was growing against a granite boulder, its "fronds" about as tall as my forefinger. I marked it with cairns above and below so that when my camera was returned to me I would be able to find this best of the specimens again.

I have no idea what it is, or how to start researching it. And I need to spend time on other things now, like making small dolls.

Seemingly tiny real people descend Gumdrop.

 
I took along on the trip my doll project that has been in the works for years without a single doll being born. (More than three years ago what slowed me down was stuffing-wool so dirty I couldn't bear to tell its story, but that excuse is long expired.)

And while sitting on the cabin deck in the warm afternoons I completed three tiny dollies! I'll post more photos of them when I have a bigger family to show. But it was a breakthrough that added to my contentment with a vacation that tried to scream "too short!"

More pleasant hours were spent paddling around the lake with my husband, while Mr. Tall fished and Mrs. Short sat on a rock nearby and knitted sweaters for her expected first grandchild.

Gumdrop Dome from the lake

Many rocks are exposed that we normally prefer not to see. It was a year of little snow in the Sierras, so the lake is down. But it's fun to drive out into the dry lake bed a ways and park in the midst of granite drama, as in the photo at top.

We can't imagine that there is another Sierra lake that has so many granite domes and peaks encircling it. As we floated on the lake I studied the variously shaped rocks and tried to come up with names for them. Only one is named on the official maps, but I think they all are deserving.

This picture shows at least four hitherto unnamed domes. The one on the left I want to call Glad Peak, because Mr. Glad and Soldier climbed it one time. In the center of the photo are two domes side-by-side, whom I am calling He and She. Between those in this view is a peninsula that is in a normal year called Ant Island, and which we like to paddle to and around. But not this time....

It doesn't matter if the snow pack was light, or if some trees have died, the sky is unchanged. But on the first night up there I completely forgot to go outside to greet the stars. The next day we all talked about how we must view them together that second night -- but the sun sets so late, and half of our party was in bed before the other half of us remembered again. Then I forgot and put on my nightgown, and then remembered again. Almost dutifully I opened the slider, pulled the door shut behind me... and immediately felt myself in Deep Heaven, what C.S. Lewis wanted to name what we coldly term Space.

The stars crowded me, pressing their quietness down. I was alone, standing on the deck barefoot with the cool night air on my legs, but barely noticing the slight discomfort, because of the great company of beings so close -- just me and them being familar, and me wondering. It would have been rude to leave after only a quick glance, and besides, they were telling me something.

I walked slowly around in the dark, annoyed by the light from the lamp inside, which I tried to keep behind me. Not a human sound could be heard, not even an animal sound. It was the kind of quietness that is roaring -- but with what? I couldn't pin down what it was, so I stood and listened. The host of heaven with weighty silence conveyed the presence of The Holy, and it was almost too exhilarating, that close to bedtime.

Eventually I had to go inside and climb under the covers. But my exciting encounter with the stars changed me in this way: Years ago I did make solitary mountain retreats here at the cabin, for several days at a time, but I haven't felt up to doing that again. Now that the feeling has been revived in me, of being alone and at the same time the opposite of lonely, I am hungry for more of it, I want long days and nights of it, and I plan to return in September. I think those stars are angels.

St. Seraphim Day

I was sad to have to leave the mountains yesterday and come home so soon. But God knew I needed the major infusion of the Holy Spirit I would get today when we commemorated St. Seraphim of Sarov, patron saint of my church. The example of his life encourages me, and also his words, such as

God is a fire that warms and kindles the heart and inward parts. Hence, if we feel in our hearts the cold which comes from the devil—for the devil is cold—let us call on the Lord. He will come to warm our hearts with perfect love, not only for Him but also for our neighbor, and the cold of him who hates the good will flee before the heat of His countenance.

Rejoice, St. Seraphim, Wonderworker of Sarov!