Give Thanks and be Transfigured

I had a miracle yesterday. I think.

You know, I’ve written here before that miracles are both more common than you think and probably happening under your radar. You have to pay attention to know when you have been visited by angels.

No point in going into the details; a bunch of things went wrong and then miraculously went right. At one point I stood up straighter than usual and just said to God “ok, I get it, but what just happened here?” And then I said to myself “just give thanks.”

And that is the message of transfiguration.

Love requires us to be focused on it, on love, and that means we cannot be focused on anything else. And that is the hardest part because we are built to be multi-tasking multi-focused individuals.

But if we want to “see” and “know” the transfiguring presence of love in our lives we have to shift our focus into the dimension of love.

Try thinking of it as a matrix or a maze in a matrix in three dimensions … you don’t walk a path so much as you navigate the points creating a pathway through.

LGBTQ people know this well. We spend our entire lives navigating a pathway through dimensions of oppression, of exclusion, of disenfranchisement, and we do it with love, for love, because God has created us in God’s own image as people of love. And at all of this we succeed because our lives are transfigured in creation by love. Give thanks for love; that is the message of transfiguration.

The presence of God is, of course, transfiguring. In the scripture [Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36], the authors go to great lengths to tell us this. Of course, this transfiguration is not really so much visible as it is detectable. You know when you are in the presence of someone who knows the presence of God. How do you know? Good question. You just do. Right?

Sing, pray, rejoice, and give thanks constantly [Psalm 99]. Maybe this is another clue? Look for the hearts of those who sing, pray, rejoice and give thanks.

[2 Peter 1:13-21] The message of love is, you must love actively, deliberately, consciously. Start with loving yourself. Then move to loving the things around you that you love. Give thanks for what you love. And then move your love ever outward to the world around you.

Imagine the concentric circles of love overlapping and you can “see” as a lamp shining in a dark place, the power of love, which is as the dawning of a new day and the rising of a morning star in your heart.

The disciples tried to catch God on that mountaintop [Luke 9:28-36]. They wanted to build “booths” to keep God in. You know, sort of like I cage my tomato plants so they don’t grow crazy but stay where I want them and do what I want them to do (well, sort of). But, of course, it doesn’t work that way. God is in the breath, God is in the vitality, God is in the eternity. God is in creation. God, who is love, is in the love and in the loving.

Give thanks for love, and be transfigured.

The Feast of the Transfiguration 2023 (Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Peter 1:13-21; Luke 9:28-36)

©2023 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

*Now is the moment

It was a very nice Thanksgiving. It snowed early in the week. Not a lot, just enough to be pretty and to test the snow-removal systems (they worked). So we’re feeling a little bit better about being in a snow zone. It was a quiet Thanksgiving, and the meal went swimmingly. I’m used to watching old movies on Thanksgiving night waiting to get an appetite up for a sandwich, and absolutely nothing of interest was on. But then I got to have my deep turkey sleep. Friday was peaceful and we went to see Dallas Buyer’s Club. It was something Brad wanted to see. (We really wanted to see Harry Potter as Ginsberg but it had left already after only 6 days in theaters here?) The movie is critically acclaimed and I suppose that’s correct, although I found it thoroughly depressing. It reminded me too much of what those days were like. I lived through that era, I survived it, I worked as a chaplain in the trenches of those horrid hospitals where AIDS patients were warehoused to run down their insurance. It is behind me, I hope.

This morning the sun is shining and the snow has melted  … a harbinger of the week to come, I hope. (I’m having electrical outlets installed on the front of the house this week; guess why?)

There is a theme for the first Sunday in Advent that is hard to escape, Paul puts it best “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment.” The rest is clear from all the rest of the scripture, Isaiah promises peace, the psalmist praises unity and reminds us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for quietness, for prosperity. That resonates with me. I prayed each day this weekend for quiet and progress, and that’s pretty much what I got. Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew’s Gospel that they must be ready at every moment. As Paul said, we all know this. Now is the time, this is the moment. Of course, every moment is now, and in every now is the moment, which is the time, to turn to God. Ahhh … you see, it isn’t about scary things coming at you from outside. Rather, it is about whether you can turn to God and stop being apart from God, which is the definition of sin. Can you turn to love? Can you turn to justice? Can you turn away from selfish things? Those are the questions, and now is the time for them.

In the US I sometimes wonder whether there is any point for gay people staying. My friends know I am an expatriate waiting to happen. I already spend more time in Amsterdam and Toronto that I do in the US. This is because, in those places, now is now, and not some future make-believe time. Gay people have equality in those places, and freedom to love, and access to full citizenship and the rights that go with it—not true in the US. So, I’m not going to tell you not to go. I guess I should remind you, however, that it is easier said than done to emigrate.

On the other hand, it is way past time for gay people to come out. It is way past time for gay people to coddle their relatives who “just aren’t ready.” It is way past time for everyone to understand that hetero-hegemony is a sin, that cuts heterosexual people off from God, because by choosing to live in that way they are playing God. We need to remind our hetero-brethren that now is the time, now is the moment. For love and justice,for everyone.

Have a happy and peaceful Advent. I wish you bounteous snowfall, because it brings peace and introspection. I wish you joy in the cuddling and peace in the sleep of winter. And I hope you will remind yourself that now is the time, now is the moment. (Oh, and don’t be putting up Christmas lights or trees yet. It is only the first Sunday in Advent!)

*First Sunday of Advent (Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44)

©2013 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Provoke One Another*

My favorite waiter is a sort of lapsed Roman Catholic. I doubt he has been to mass in decades, although really I don’t know. I do know he has a sort of terror about apocalyptic scripture; every year as Advent approaches he gets scared about the lessons he would hear were he actually to go to mass. I find it humorous and also a little awe-inspiring. I always try to tell him what I’m going to try to say here, but he doesn’t believe me.

Jesus is very clear in this Gospel (Mark 13:1-8), that as the decision-point approaches there will be wars and famines and earthquakes.

Well, 2000 years on we still are having wars and famines and earthquakes. What you need to try to grasp here is that that is not the important part of Jesus’ message. The important part is the last phrase “this is but the beginning of the birthpangs.” You see, our whole lives are made up of sequences of wars and famines and earthquakes. Trials come and go. It is the nature of human existence. And yet, how often do we fall to pieces in the midst of these trials, thinking it somehow is the end? Instead, we must see these trials as beginnings, as places in life where we begin to see the truth about our existence and our relationship with God, which is our relationship with each other.

As it says in the letter to the Hebrews “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without ever wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.” We must understand that through our trials our love for one another deepens, and as a natural consequence of that, our relationship with God strengthens.

LGBT people in America have just won several important victories. We have won votes for basic marriage equality in three more states. An out lesbian has been elected to the United States Senate. It is a kind of morning, like a new day, except it is the result of something like a cross between a war and a famine and an earthquake. And so we see it is the beginning of a birthpang, of justice. Justice my friends is the one thing God always delivers.

So “let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds … and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). Yes, indeed, let us consider how to provoke one another to love.

It is Thanksgiving in America. As a citizen of the world, I always am surprised to discover how little people in other countries understand what this week means to us. And as I grow older and older I understand ever more just how important Thanksgiving is for us. Because it is our once-a-year time to pause, and consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.

Happy Thanksgiving!

©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Proper 28 (1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Hebrews 10: 11-14 (15-18) 19-25; Mark 13:1-8)