It Changes The Shape Of Things

I am at counter packing a turkey sandwich into a brown paper lunch sack and folding my mind around, well, the transfiguration with a small "t" happening right there on the other side of eye looking out over morning. Light transfigures shadow. "Let it happen right here on this side of window to my soul," I rinse apple for lunch sack.

The phone rings. "I was just turning onto Chaparral, you know that corner?" My mother heart turns all worried.

"And when I looked to make the turn..." What dear girl...what happened? I picture her in the big Suburban, jean clad and booted all fall fashion.

"...and the sun was shining such angle across the dew from last night that it looked as bright as snow! I thought it had snowed!"

And light scripts out dark. Scripts out fear. Writes right over it. Because there is no darkness in light.

"Thank you, precious daughter, for this!"

God finger unlatches night sky, unhinges hemisphere door and cracks open dawn and there is light. God eye. Morning sun beam in holy hand.

And I wonder, does God wrap His fingers around sun beam and hold it as pen in mine? Poised? His poised all hope and faith over me to strengthen mine after dark impatient hours? Surely.

Because life is not without shadow or scar. Not without night fall.

Because what falls in night is transfigured bright as snow.

Purple Transfiguration

by: Carolyn Roehrig

I look for transfiguration. Because I know it's there. Still. Because Jesus Himself was Transfigured, a mercy to His disciples who would watch Him suffer. And suffer, too. Faith tried.

Hint of glory hope helps faith endure.

And I practice remembering this glory hope. I have to remember for the decent down the mountain. To keep it top of mind. So I look for it. Listen for it. Visit it often. And if I can, touch it and taste it. An everyday way to move from glory to glory.

Simply put, it changes the shape of things.

Pecans are falling. Whap-thapping on soft ground. And not without stirring leafy conversation on the way out. I hear them better than I see them. Until my eye trains beneath overcast sky and I find one. I rub the shell clean between my fingers and there's another one! And another! And now I'm seeing them everywhere.

Falling glory and pecan hope. Is it silly? No. Not for me. Because right now I place pecan on daughter's breakfast plate next to the english muffin and egg. And we plan to spend time gathering more. Together. And cracking shell.

And if it rains today, we will toast pecans with oats and brown sugar. Change the shape of things and move from glory to glory though there be cold and damp.

I really don't know how it works, but today is shaping up different because pecans are falling and I'm gathering hope.

I pull nutcracker and pick from kitchen drawer, crack the shell and we taste hope. Glory hope. Transfiguration in a nut shell.

I look around. Such holy miracle everywhere. And it's for faith and hope in all times. But especially when challenged.

Pecans in a Bowl

It is for me now remembering twenty-four years ago at altar when the shape of all known changed everything. Joyously. The "I do's" exchanged, "In sickness and health, for richer or poorer, better or worse."

Because the miracle, isn't it especially for this?

Especially for when darkest hours are dragon? When weight hovers as stone over the last opening to light and life? For whatever the sickness or poverty or whatever the worse? It was for the disciples at the very Mount of Transfiguration. It's what transfiguration is all about.

It changes the shape of things.

It's for hope of glory.

It's glimpse of heaven joy. To sustain here. Even here.

Looking for it seems to have become my preoccupation. And amazingly, miraculously, it's there. Here. Just around bend in road. Just outside window this morning. And somehow because pecans are falling.

I bag the lunch.

And eat the last pecan piece on the plate.

written by: Carolyn Roehrig