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“Don’t name the farm animals,” Marie’s dad told her.  “We may be eating them soon!”  Naming is ownership, an affirmation that the one named is special and unique.  Naming ceremonies are observed world-wide, and announce that a brand-new entity has a home, a reason to be alive, and some personal expectations attached to the name.  Even naming the Enemy diminishes their awe and power, for now we “know” them–and their foibles…  Naming the Other removes them from the vague and unknowable, and brings the relationship into a personal reality.

Readings for the upcoming weekend enflesh our human yearning to “know” God.  An often-read passage from Acts 9:1-20 is the dramatic story of Saul (later to be known as St. Paul) being violently confronted by the Holy near Damascus as he was on his way there to persecute followers of Jesus.  Blinded by heavenly light, Saul asked our question, “Who are you, Lord?”  The drama continues with Ananias, a Believer, reluctantly going “into the den of the lion” to restore Saul’s sight.  Healed and baptized, “immediately [Saul] began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’.”

Another book we’re reading during the Easter Season is THE REVELATION TO ST. JOHN, this week in the 5th Chapter, verses 11-14.  Here is a vision of heaven, with angels and all the company singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”  Naming the attributes of Jesus is central both to our worship and to the way we conduct our daily journey:  if we can say these things about Jesus then our ethical walk and moral stance will reflect this Naming.

The Gospel is read from the “postscript” to John’s account, perhaps appended for the comfort and integrity of the community which grew up around John.  Chapter 21:1-14 is one more story of the disciples’ failure–or reluctance–to recognize the Lord.  Only when the Man on the Shore tells them where to fish does John come to and says to Peter, “It is the Lord!”  Once again the Risen Christ has broken into Business as Usual –if we can recognize him.  “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not put it out.”  Naming the Lord continues to comfort and inflame the faith community.

Central UMC has a name-tag Sunday once each month, where members & guests alike are to own their names.  This lifts me from “the creepy old guy that sometimes sings in the choir” to the proud bearer of the name my parents chose for me.  Some of us mutter that “everyone knows my name”–but that’s untrue.  We need to identify the Other; we need to identify ourselves.  Mostly we need to Name the Lord, in whom we “live and move and have our being.”

God Bless Us, Everyone!            Horace Brown King

My thoughts on selected readings for the upcoming week can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com.

With Robert Fulgham, lots of life-rules were learned in Kindergarten or earlier.  Hold hands while crossing the street, and only cross at the corner.  Eat with your mouth closed.  Don ‘t hit or bite.  Always play nice, and tell the truth.  If you can’t say nice things, don’t say anything at all.  Parents, grandparents, teachers and other life-coaches repeat these cultural mores until we’re respectable children.  Later, we learn rules that are more cynic:  “nice guys finish last”; “finders keepers, losers weepers”; “what they don’t know won’t hurt them”.   Scripture readings we’ll hear this Sunday confront us with questions of ethical integrity, amplified through the Resurrection of Jesus.

During the Season of Easter  (the 50 days ’til Pentecost) Luke’s account of how believers were affected — the Acts of the Apostles — is read.  This week’s lesson, Acts 5:27-32, sets the theme with Peter and other Apostles openly teaching about Jesus’ resurrection despite being officially silenced by the authorities.  “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”(v.29)  Their bold acts of civil disobedience go against “the Rules for Nice People” and are contrary to the accepted patterns of Good Citizenship!  This conflict between civil regulations and a well-considered and documented protest has challenged the Church from rejection of military service in the Roman Legions to the selling of indulgences and other bribery in the Middle Ages, from the abolition of slavery to the ordination of women and acceptance of LGBT believers in more current times.  Have the Rules changed?  Or do we just understand Jesus better…?

More reactionary stuff comes in the Second Lesson, Revelation 1:4-8.  Jesus here is identified as “the ruler of the kings of the earth”, and who “made us to be a kingdom”.  Penned by a political exile, John’s Revelation describes a NEW heaven and a NEW earth which is beyond the terrors expected as the Old is purged!  Filled with admittedly confusing imagery which seems quite foreign to our Twenty-First Century experience, the narrative becomes a dream-like wandering through the alternative universe, the one ruled and filled by the God-like, as opposed to “Babylon”, archetype of the venial and manipulative.

The Gospel is John’s remembrance of Jesus’ appearance to his pals (20:19-31).  Former rules of locked doors and panic were dispelled: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.'”  They were falling apart–and he offered them Peace!  For some reason, Thomas wasn’t there and couldn’t accept the New Rules about Life Beyond Death:  “Unless I see the mark of the nails…I will not believe.”  (Don’t be so smug: Thom was speaking for ALL of us who’re trying to adjust to the New.)  And the summation of the New Rules?  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

We United Methodists learned in confirmation class how to sort out the Rules, how to discern what God really  wants us to be about.  John Wesley offered his Quadrilateral, four tests of Holy intent:  Scripture, Tradition, Experience & Reason.  Is our proposed path congruent with Biblical teaching and practice?  Is this path something that our spiritual ancestors have explored?  Has the Holy Spirit spoken to our hearts about this matter?  And does it make “sense”, as we attempt to live with integrity?   Easter tells us that the Old Rules may be incomplete, and that there’s a new definition to maintain our life-bearing community.

God Bless Us, Every One                Horace Brown King

My thoughts on Biblical readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com

It’s quiet, here in the park.  Wisps of dust half-heartedly remember yesterday’s excitement.  No kids loudly discovering plastic eggs.  A candy wrapper blows about, left from Sunrise Service.  Inside the sanctuary it’s also quiet.  A few partly-digested Alleluias linger in the choir loft.  There’s a stain on the carpet from little Devon’s unfortunate over-indulgence in Easter candy.  The church dreams in dozy memory of yesterday’s grandeur….  Easter has been here.

Yesterday we joined Isaiah in a vision of God’s Perfection (65:17-25).  Heaven and earth is to be renewed, and the Holy City will be free of weeping and mourning.  Everyone will enjoy his or her own stuff:  no alien bullies will raid their best larders!  “They shall be offspring blessed by the Lord–and their descendants as well.”   Even wolves, lions and lambs will co-exist:  for the Lord has redeemed God’s People.

Having been touched by Resurrection, we hear tales of the Acts of the Apostles during these weeks of Eastertide.  Peter had been summoned  to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, to tell about Jesus.  Without clever elaboration he told about Jesus’ life and holy works, his passion and crucifixion.  “But God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear.”(10:40)   The Church was being formed by visionaries who dared ridicule and worse by telling how God has designed Life Beyond Death.  Though few of them dare believe it,  many will be at our Easter assemblies for relief from the deadliness of hate & fear, greed & anger which permeate our nation today.

John’s Gospel (20:1-18) is familiar, so read it with wide-eyed astonishment.  Mary (Magdelene?  of Bethany?) is angered not to find Jesus where she’d last seen him.  Peter & John shrugged their shoulders at what was hard to comprehend–and went home.  Mary hung around, but still couldn’t invest in a Resurrected Lord.  Finally she accepted the New Work of God.  Finally she dared Tomorrow.  Her message to the disciples and to the rest of us who hope beyond hope is that Jesus will meet us on The Day After.

As a jaded old preacher, I’ve struggled over the years to inject something memorable or even clever into the Easter Story.  I’ve not succeeded.  Yet the world-weary have  gathered to sing “Christ the Lord is Ris’n Today” to bolster their courage, and strain to once again hear a long-cherished message…even in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And the Day After Easter will hear its echoes in the Halls of Commerce, the corridors of the schools and the hungry streets of the lonely–

The Lord is Risen!  He is Risen Indeed!

God Bless Us, Every One                      Horace Brown King

My musings on the announced readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com

Relax.  I’m not going to talk that much about “The Sinner of St. Ambrose”, St. Augustine.  Suffice it to know that St. Gus’ life was about his struggle–and guilt– of trying to be IN the world, and not OF it.  Haunted by his bon vivant  early days, he crafted many fine sermons and texts about his ultimate assumption of a Christ-like lifestyle.

So we’re approaching Palm Sunday, as we remember Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem:  a story of commitment amidst the commerce, of Holy Vision beyond today’s demands, of hope despite cynic headlines.  Is this contemporary, or what!?  Some congregations will include the Passion Story of later Holy Week; I’ve chosen to confine my thoughts to the  “Triumphal Entry”.
We’re set up by the reading of Psalm 118, a Psalm of Ascents for pilgrims to the Temple to sing.  “This is the gate of the Lord; The righteous shall enter through it.” (v.20)  Were not the UNrighteous welcome?  Probably not.  “The stone that the builders rejected (Jesus?) has become the chief cornerstone.”  This must have given ol’ Augustine quite a bit of comfort!  “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord…”  (This doesn’t examine old baggage, does it?!)  “O give thanks to the Lord, for [God] is good, for [God’s] steadfast love endures forever.”

All of the Gospels record the Palm Sunday epic–though some details differ.  Matthew & Mark, for instance, make a point of making the steed a donkey, just as Zechariah had announced.  Luke, a Gentile, cared little about linking to the Hebrew Bible; so we here see a colt.  Matthew & Mark saw palm fronds as a political statement (sort of like shamrocks to the Irish); Luke ignores them completely.  Yet all include an ascription  of Messianic salvation:  “Blessed is the king/one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  Jesus was frustrated to tears by the carelessness of Zion–but he broke in anyway.  Just as he’s been frustrated to tears by the carelessness of Augustine & me–but he broke in anyway…  What’s at YOUR gates?

The Evangel today proclaims a God who uses unlikely instruments, even flouting City of Man wisdom.  God is yet creating with material that confounds local codes and raises the eyebrows of the genteel.  We who stand in the gate are urged forward to a vision of how things shall yet be.  Where will this parade lead us??

Peter Brown, in his biography AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, writes “The citizens of Jerusalem also depended on this world, but they became distinct from Babylon by their capacity to yearn for something else:  ‘Now let us hear, brothers, let us hear and sing; let us pine for the City where we are citizens….By pining, we are already there; we have already cast our hope, like an anchor, on that coast.  I sing of somewhere else, not of here:  for I sing with my heart, not my flesh.  The citizens of Babylon hear the sound of the flesh, the Founder of Jerusalem hears the tune of our hearts.'” (page 314)

God Bless us, every one                        Horace Brown King

My musings on Lectionary readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

In Ninth Grade, I was somehow chosen for the Ninth Grade Basketball team–despite being nearsighted, scrawny and short.  Pickins’ were slim, that year.  I desperately wanted a pair of kneepads, but I knew that household money was tight.  My mom told me, “I’ll make a way”.  And she did.  You also probably remember a time or two when a parent Made a Way even though the solution appeared improbable.  Scripture readings for this Fifth Sunday in Lent present unexpected ways that God moves us through and beyond improbable situations.

Isaiah of Babylon reminds the Exiles of previous miraculous interventions, such as the parting of the Re(e)d Sea.(43:16-17)  But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!  God’s works are always bigger and better than last time!  “I am about to do a new thing….I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”(v.19)  Once, God made a path through the sea and provided dry land where the water was.  But now, in the second exodus from an alien culture, the Holy Path will lead through the driest of land and water will be discovered where all was wilderness!  “Isaiah predicts different performances by the same actors, different dramas by the same author.”  (David L. Bartlett, FEASTING on the WORD, C 2:125)

The Epistle is from Paul’s writings to the Church at Philippi,  his first European flock.  (3:4-14)  Like the Prophet, he begins by recounting the past:  he was a “perfect” example of the Complete Jewish practitioner (vv.4-6).  Well and good…yet in Christ he found such fulfillment that the earlier honors of his life were put behind him “as rubbish”.  God is doing a New Thing, Making a Way, and so Paul presses on “toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

John tells the story of Jesus at dinner with his good friends Lazarus, Martha & Mary at Bethany, about 3 miles outside the Jerusalem city gates. (12:1ff)  John’s Gospel is the only one to tell of this family–why is that?  At any rate, Mary anoints Jesus for his burial, drowning his feet with expensive perfume and wiping his feet with her hair!  Everyone’s surprised by this exotic extravagance–Mary explains that Jesus is God’s New Way, and knowing him involves his death and burial.  After this, the Old Way is seen to pale before the glories yet to be revealed!

Our “job” during Lent is to remember where we’ve been and celebrate it…and then to let it go, to make room for the ever-new presence which we can and should anticipate.

God Bless Us, Every One!               Horace Brown King

Liturgical question for this Sunday:  What comes after the Recessional Hymn?          Answer:  The folks who didn’t set their clocks ahead.                                                   –from the internet

My thoughts about lectionary readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every
Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

A lot of folks don’t like change.  Many of us mourn the death of the familiar–especially when things have been going pretty well for us.  The present American political “campaign” bears this out:  major candidates are intent upon leading us back to The Good Old Days, and voters who’re angry and scared are egging them on.  Of course, there are those who WELCOME change, because things have gotta improve…  Myself, I’m glad for new medical procedures and digitalization, smart cars and medical coverage for all…

Scriptures which you’ll hear read this weekend present God’s doings as a work in progress.  We begin by hearing about the Israelites  finally camping in the plain of Jericho after their 40-year trek to the Promised Land.  (Joshua 5:9-`12)  How did they  know that something new was afoot?  “…The Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.”  What a change THAT was!  What did the Back to Egypt Committee say?

St.Paul reminds the Corinthian congregations of the changed vision which comes as Christ is known and embraced. (II 5:16-21)  “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:  everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”  Lent is our journey from Old to New, an affirmation that God is still shuffling the deck.  Paul himself had become an allegory of change:  Bad Ol’ Saul had been zapped into Good Ol’ Paul!  The congregations are to become a “ferment of hope…letting God’s future break into the world.”  (Dirk G. Lange, in FEASTING on the WORD, C 2:115)

The Gospel is the well-beloved story of the Prodigal Son, actually the Prodigal Father, in the 15th Chapter of Luke’s remembrance.  You recall how the Second Child asked for his share of the family farm and went far away to seek his fortune.  Things didn’t go very well; and at bottom, he decided to tuck his tail between his legs and go home to his Father’s mercy.  O Frabjous Day!  Dad had kept the door unlocked and the porch light on, and ran to welcome him back!  Disgusted, the drab Number One Son said, “Isn’t that just like the old man!  He’s gonna take back my dumb brother!”  Can people change?   Seems to me like one of the main tenets of the Church.

So every day is a New Adventure in God’s Grace!  What’ll happen next?  “In the community of the church, we look at our pilgrim companions as new creations….The challenge posed to each and every community is discovering the presence of God already active, already acting in the lives of each member.” (Lange, ibid. p.113)

ER physician:  “How’s that kid who swallowed the dollar bill?”    Nurse: “There’s no change yet.”

God Bless Us, Every One                Horace Brown King

My musings upon lectionary passages for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com.

Last month, I was in a production of “Morning’s at Seven”.  One of the characters sensed that something was amiss in his life; he kept trying to “get back to the fork”.  We’re also reminded of Bugs Bunny, who pops out of a tunnel in Antarctica, consults his map and considers, “Ehhhh–I shoulda toined left at Albuquerque!”   Scriptures for the upcoming weekend remind us that we’re always at a turning-point, some holy opportunity for weal…or woe.

Isaiah of Babylon attempts to re-center his fellow Exiles around their holy-history of an expectant and gracious God.  Many of the original Exiles had died, and their children have become full-fledged Babylonians.”Don’t let the rumor die,” they’re urged.  “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? … let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that [God] may have mercy on them…” (55:2,7)

St. Paul’s audience at Corinth was very diverse, and we speculate that there were only a handful of Jews involved in the young congregations.  How much did they know of what we consider the “Old Testament”?  Nevertheless, Paul recalls tales of grace and tragedy from the Exodus saga (I 10:1-11).  Baptism and spiritual food & drink yielded all too soon to idolatry.  “So (v.12) if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.”  But God will provide a “way out” of our testing…  Now where was that fork?

Luke (13:1-9) tells about Galileans and other citizens who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?” asks Jesus.  “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”  Turn it around, he said.  Think again.  Take the other fork.

Casey Thompson, Presbyterian clergy from Memphis, Tennessee, muses:  “If the Israelites,, who were the recipients of so much intercessor activity on God’s part, failed over and over in faithfulness (from golden calves to complaints about God’s menu), how can the church succeed now–particularly now that whole industries are committed to the making and marketing of idols? ….How do our practices create virtues that enable us to endure?”   (FEASTING on the WORD, C 2:90)

At a time in my ministry when I was doing a lot of counseling, I used to play a “game” with my clients called “When do you last remember ____?”  It was a means of tracing their life-course “back to the fork”, recollecting the turning-point where their expectations and dreams began to run amok.  Can we really “go back”?  I don’t think so; but I think we can unsnarl the thread from the tapestry and begin to brighten the picture…

“I chose the road less traveled by, and it has made all the difference.”  –Robert Frost

God Bless Us, Every One                     Horace Brown King

My musings about Lectionary selections for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com

Some years ago, a Church Lady of our acquaintance wore a sweatshirt which pictured a hen addressing a small flock of wide-eyed peeps,  “Because I’m the MAMA!  THAT’s  Why!”  Although my years as a “peep” have long departed, I sometimes look nostalgically at half-remembered occasions when a parental figure told me what to do…  We all do, I think.

Scriptures for this coming Second Sunday in Lent weekend have to do with a loving Parent/God offering a Better Way.  Back in Genesis 15, we find childless Abram growling at Yahweh because he had no children yet to inherit his genes.  A protective Parent assured him, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” (v.1)  The passage moves Abram from doubtful skepticism to acceptant trust, and establishes the psychological value of learning Parenting FROM a Parent.

There’s no specific reason why we don’t dance with the Psalms during our weekly conversations, so don’t ignore them!  Especially this week, when Psalm 27 brings a magnificence to the whole Parent-Child transaction!

St. Paul thinks HE’s a Mother Hen!  He writes to his flock in Philippi, “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us [me].” (3:17)   Part of Parenting is leading by example, being a strong role model for the peeps.  Paul here isn’t speaking only to individuals, but encouraging a successful participation within the greater flock.  Part of my late-life memories includes an appreciation of those saints who sparked my growing-up days with their steady presence.

Luke remembers how Jesus’ detractors warned him about his confrontational teachings. (13:31-35)  He assured them that his path led immediately and urgently to Jerusalem, center of Jewish ancestral traditions, where he was to proclaim by word and deed a Kingdom whose values were opposed to the imperfections of Rome and Temple.  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (v.34)  Michael B. Curry writes, “For Jesus, God’s passionate dream, compassionate desire, and bold determination is to gather God’s human children closer and closer in [a holy] embrace and love.”  (In FEASTING on the WORD, C 2:71)

If this week’s blog seems a bit over-the-top, attribute it to my persistent Winter Cold; or else the medicines which won’t cure me, but will make me feel better while I wait it out.  Which brings me to one last cheep shot:  a Mother Hen carrying a bowl of soup enters a sick-room where a peep is tucked in up to his chin–“Of course it’s not anyone we know!  At least eat the noodles!”

God Bless Us,Every One                       Horace Brown King

My musing about Lectionary  Readings for the upcoming week is found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook–or on horacebrownking.com

The kids of our church served pancakes, tonight, just as they always do on Mardi Gras.   Then we stopped by Walmart, to stock up on goodies–so much for a Lenten fast!  The idea behind the pancakes is to purge the larder of fat for forty days.  We postmoderns don’t fast from luxurious food;  our sackcloth is the denial of attitudes which stand between us and God.  I’m going to try to give up Arrogance.  (Lotsa luck.)

Scriptures for the First weekend in Lent speak not of poverty, but abundance.  On the doorstep to the Promised Land, the wandering Hebrews are instructed to bring God the first fruits of their harvest. (Deuteronomy 26:1-11)   This reminds them that there is to be a generous fulfillment after forty years of desert wandering!  What began in slavery has climaxed in Milk & Honey:  past the unknowing and meager rations, past trying to learn and observe a mountain of rules, past the difficulties of diversity…  Through this Lenten season, what shall we discover about being heirs to God’s Generosity?

The few verses in Romans 10:8-13 acknowledge St. Paul’s Jewish appreciation of God’s covenant.  Just as God’s generosity landed the Hebrews in a place where they could develop their future, Paul turns back to Deuteronomy to affirm God’ nearness: “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (30:13)  He sees the Exodus-like spiritual journey as already implanted deep inside, then overflowing in our communication.   “Oz never gave nuthin’ to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have…”

All Lenten activities begin with remembering Jesus’ Wilderness Temptations, this year in Luke’s account (4:1-13).  Full of the Holy Spirit, the Lord went on retreat to think things out.  “Why not”, the Evil Voice wondered, “Why not be Relevant?  You could end world hunger just like THAT!  Doesn’t that sound good?”  “Why not be Powerful?  You could enforce brotherhood, end war, stop global warming…  Doesn’t that sound good?”  “Why not be Spectacular?  EVERYone would recognize you, ‘Jesus’ would be a household name!  Doesn’t that seem right?”  The Evil One is always trying to get us to choose ourselves before God, the Giver of All Good Gifts (see Genesis 3–and note how this didn’t work very well!).

Robert W. Prim shares some concluding wisdom:  “God’s generosity is expansive beyond our imaginations.  Our calling as followers of the One who embodied
God’s generosity is to live generous lives in response.  The Lenten season invites us to self-examination regarding the extent to which God’s generosity is written upon our hearts.”  (FEASTING on the WORD, C 2:43)

God Bless Us, Every One                Horace Brown King

My observations on lectionary readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday in this spot on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com.

Yes, Theophilus, this DOES sound like the start of a fireflies’ track meet.  But the readings you’ll hear this coming weekend have to do with Transfiguration:  an encounter with God which brings a noticeable glory.  At the end of the Season of Epiphany, God’s unfolding light shines brightly and enduringly as we plunge into the late-Winter darkness of Lent.  May it illumine your journey, and be a “light unto your path”.

We begin with the story of Moses which many consider to be central to the Hebrew Testament, Exodus 34:29-35.   After Moses received the Law from God on Mt. Sinai, “he did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.”  This shine derived from intimacy with God, and represented the glorious promise bestowed on all Israel, the bearers of God’s glory.  This brightness is a glowing aura,  often depicted in early paintings as a “halo”.  Nick Carter writes, “The fundamental point of this lesson from Scripture is that proximity to God is the necessary and defining first step.” (FEASTING ON THE WORD, C 1:439)   The Law may direct us; but the Glory defines us…

St. Paul’s Corinthian Letters are filled with calling the community of belief into further travels on the road of holiness.  He speaks of direct, non-veiled encounters with The Other:  “And all of us…are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another…” (II Corinthians 3:18)  It’s personally a relief to know that glory is incremental, a process on a twisting path.  Robert Warden Prim reassures us, “No one falls head first into the pool of God’s transforming love and emerges fully formed as a perfect reflection of Christ.” (op.cit., page 451)

This year’s Transfiguration account comes through Luke’s Gospel, 9:28-36.  Another mountaintop experience (same mountain?  Doesn’t really matter, God knows where we are!) Peter, James & John–representing the People of the Covenant–noticed that Jesus’ face appeared differently while he was praying, and then Moses (the Law) and Elijah (the Prophets) “appeared in glory”.  At the end of their conversation, a cloud wrapped them all up; and when it lifted, Jesus was alone.  But the non-digital cloud had a message: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”  Good Jewish boys that they were, they undoubtedly remembered the old tribal story about how “a cloud and fiery pillar” led them across the wilderness.  Glory!

Somehow I wish that the other Disciples could have seen a remnant of the Holy Brightness –and maybe they did.  Because it’s important for me to remember that from time to time you and I have had similar encounters which have changed our lives and strengthened our faith…usually just when we’ve needed it the most.

Not long after Marie & I were married, we took our VW Beetle for maintenance.  And since it was a nice day, we walked around the neighborhood while waiting.  A friendly lady saw that we were holding hands, and asked if we were newly-weds.  Somehow uncomfortable with that, I replied, “No, we just keep the Old Glow!”  May all of us be touched by a Divine Presence, and may we keep the Old Glow….

God Bless Us, Every One.            Horace Brown King

My musings on lessons for the coming weekend appear at this spot on Facebood every Tuesday; or can be found at horacebrownking.com