(a poetic reflection on Luke 9:28-36)
Daily Office Gospel reading for Friday, October 14, 2022: Luke 9:28-36
I remember in 2018
on my first Camino
that very last long uphill slog
up the last big hill…
The Monte do Gozo
And the rather odd, but intriguing statue
That looked out over Santiago.
I didn’t understand its meaning
but that didn’t matter.
It still felt like a dazzling moment
that this guardian of the city
was somehow connecting me
to the hundreds of years of pilgrims,
breathless,
weary,
yet hopeful and trusting in faith
that the expanse of the city below
would be enough to give me the strength
to go down the hill
and get to the place
where I would be at my journey’s end.
What I did not know in 2022
when I climbed that hill again
was that the statue had been removed
and the empty spot where it was
would be jarring and disorienting
and I felt more than a little surprise and sadness
That I was not making the trip down the hill
with The Guardian over my shoulder
and into the city
without past glory,
but instead…
with only my companions
in a new present moment.
I couldn’t help this week but wonder
as I was re-reading
Luke’s version of the Transfiguration
if Peter, James, and John
had hoped somehow
that Moses and Elijah
Were somehow going to connect all the dots
to make them part of all their past glory,
something bigger than themselves…
But instead,
they had to live with the reality
that their role was to walk back down that hill
alone with Jesus
in their own new present moment.
Maria Evans splits her week between being a pathologist and laboratory director in Kirksville, MO, and gratefully serving in the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri , as Interim Priest at Trinity Episcopal Church in Hannibal, MO.
