When I was a girl, I longed to experience what Emily Starr, the heroine of L.M. Montgomery’s Emily trilogy, called “the flash:”
It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside—but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond—only a glimpse—and heard a note of unearthly music….And always when the flash came to her Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty.
As a young teen, I wanted to experience that glimpse of the transcendent, to be thrilled with the momentary parting of the veil between heaven and earth.
What I have since realized is that I do have these glimpses of the glory beyond. The parting of the veil fills me with awe and delights my soul, but it also opens in me a yearning, a deep and almost painful desire to enter more deeply into the mystery that lies at the heart of existence and to live in those moments that shimmer with a radiance that is beyond what I usually see or know.
Perhaps this is why the story of the Transfiguration is one of my favorites in all of Scripture….
Read the rest over at A Deeper Church.
