Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear Friend,

Ever since Tuesday, Candlemas, I've been noticing the ways this weeks' readings have played with light and dark. I think the icon Mtr Kelli shared in her Daily Bread has helped the feast stick with me in a new way this week, with its radiance and sweetness. Today's Daily Office Gospel reading is the Markan Transfiguration:

And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As we near the end of the season of Epiphany and prepare ourselves for Lent, and as the days grow longer and light and dark and the sunsets between remain close, I wanted to share this poem that invites the kind of aww and ordinariness we see in the Transfiguration story:

Bless those
who know the darkness
and do not fear it,

who carry the light
and are not consumed,

who prepare the way
and will not abandon it,

who bless with grace
that does not leave us.

(Jan Richardson, In Wisdom's Path, p. 48, 2000)

May the God who both dazzles and patiently reminds God's people when to remain and when to go out to bless, when to stay on the mountain and when to come down, be with you this day.

-Mtr Taylor