August 4, 2024: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

LISA Wiens Heinsohn

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Homily for St. John’s Episcopal Church by Lisa Wiens Heinsohn given August 4, 2024

The Transfiguration: Luke 9:28-36

 

The story you just heard is called the “Transfiguration of Jesus,” this strange story about Jesus’ face and clothes becoming dazzling white when he speaks with God on the mountain; this moment when suddenly his long-dead ancestors Moses and Elijah are speaking with him about what is about to happen in his life. In last week’s staff meeting we were talking about how otherworldly this story can sound to 21^st century ears.

 

But as I got to thinking about it, I realized how often 21^st century eyes and ears have experienced that truth is stranger than fiction. Science has advanced to such a degree that we now hear about all kinds of things that are truly amazing if not downright seemingly impossible. For example, in a recent article in “Live Science,” I read that a study in quantum physics suggests time itself might be an illusion arising from quantum entanglement.[1] What can that possibly mean? Or how about this: there is a moss that can survive liquid nitrogen, gamma radiation and the conditions of outer space for awhile.[2] Or this one, that probably sounds more plausible: another study suggests that dogs can smell it when their humans are stressed out, and it really does seem to make them sad.[3] Or this: there is evidence that trees effectively hold their breath when there is a lot of smoke around from wildfires.[4] Or this: it turns out that ants are the only other non-human animals known to be sophisticated enough to perform life-saving operations on each other when they have significant wounds in their limbs.[5] Or this: some scientists posit that there actually really could be multiverses—multiple (and some say an infinite number of) disconnected universes that run parallel to each other.[6] What?

 

My point is that there is so much out there we haven’t the faintest clue about, that is happening all the time right under our noses, that fills the universe (or the multiverse, as the case may be) with wonder. For the first time in the history of humankind, we are getting a glimpse of some of these deep mysteries, and they astonish me. Truth is much stranger than fiction. There are levels of reality that run far beyond what the naked eye can see. One only has to see the aurora borealis to see that there are vast waves of energy normally invisible to us that surround us and impact us all the time.

 

So returning to the story of today, the Transfiguration of Jesus, there is this feeling in the story of what the Celts would call “the veils between the worlds becoming thin,”—this experience where the usual camouflage between physical and spiritual reality drops, and the worlds merge, and the disciples are able to see things they normally cannot. They see the incredible radiance of the face of Jesus when he speaks with God. They see their ancestors speaking with Jesus about his upcoming departure. No matter if you see the Bible as describing stories that are literally true or if you see it as a book full of mythological stories that describe deeper reality or something in between, in the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus, the past and the present and the future are all present in this moment. The divine and the human are merged and light is the result. There is a reality beyond what we can usually sense and it is meaningful and inspiring and important.

 

Our Music Minister Chad Smith and I have a long history of trading books, and we are currently discussing a book by Don Miguel Ruiz called The Voice of Knowledge: A Practical Guide to Inner Peace. The author describes a moment when he went outside in the desert at night because it was too hot for him to sleep. It was during the dark of the moon, when the stars were especially brilliant. And he says that suddenly, looking at the infinity of all those stars, he knew without a doubt that those stars were alive. That all of creation, our Mother Earth, is alive, and is one living being.[7] And then he also suddenly realized that he was not alone. He became aware that just as he was perceiving infinity in these stars, the universe was perceiving infinity in his body, the billions of atoms connected to make up his body just as the billions of stars make up the galaxies. And he felt his consciousness merging with the consciousness of the stars, perceiving himself, perceiving the whole as one, and he said this. We are only one because everything is made of light.[8]

 

These moments of transcendent realization are almost impossible to put into words. In fact the moment you do put them into words something is lost in the translation. But that does not make them unreal or untrue. Just as Don Miguel saw that everything is made of light, our own tradition has countless stories about when the veil is lifted, like the veil over Moses’ face, and what we perceive is light. In fact light is the very first thing that God makes, in the primordial story of creation, when God makes light on the first day. Did you ever notice that God doesn’t make the sun and moon and stars until the fourth day? So what is this light that is created on the first day?

 

Light, in our tradition, is apparently the building block of creation. Perhaps light is the recognition that you and I and the trees and the lake and the stars are made in the image of God. That we are reflections of one another and of God, that we are all made of one substance. No matter how polarized our country and world have become, no matter how much we disagree and are rightfully distressed by some of the policies and rhetoric coming out of fear and hatred between the parties, it is still true that at our deepest essence, at our deepest core, we are one. We are made of light.

 

So how can we experience this in our normal lives?

 

I recently finally watched the movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Tom Hanks’ depiction of Mr. Rogers. Did you all see that movie? How many of you grew up watching Mr. Rogers at least some of the time? I know I did. Now spoiler alert, I’m about to tell you what the movie is about, but if you haven’t seen it you should. In the movie there is a disgruntled journalist, Lloyd Vogel, whose writing has become increasingly caustic and negative. His publisher gives him the assignment to interview Mr. Rogers. When he complains that this assignment is effectively beneath him, she tells him that Mr. Rogers is the only celebrity still willing to be interviewed by him—that everyone else has declined, because they’re all afraid he will only write negative things about them. Meanwhile, we see glimpses of the journalist’s personal life—how angry he is at his father, who abandoned his mother and her kids when his mother was dying, and how this anger is permeating most of his life.

 

Long story short, Mr. Rogers confounds the journalist Lloyd Vogel time and again, and continues to see good and to invite good from Lloyd. Ultimately Lloyd experiences a real transformation, a shift in the anger that has been destroying his life. When Lloyd asks Mr. Roger’s wife what it is like to be married to a saint, she says she doesn’t like the word saint because it makes it sound like Mr. Roger’s way of living is unattainable, whereas Mr. Rogers is not perfect and he works hard at maintaining the attitudes he does—and that all of us can do the same. All of us can see light in each other even when we are filled with negative emotions. All of us can call out light from each other even when we are at our worst.

 

Perhaps in your mind Mr. Rogers is just as otherworldly as dazzling Jesus on a mountain or Don Miguel perceiving non-duality in the stars, but that, my friends, is the true illusion. The illusion is not these otherworldly stories. The true illusion is that we are separate and only in competition with one another. The true illusion is that we are inherently defective and can never be trusted. The deepest reality is that we are made of light.

 

I once had a dream of a person, whose face I couldn’t see but who seemed loving and even divine, who came to sit outside the bubble around me I imagine as my personal space. There was this incredibly gentle and respectful feeling of this being, who was far more powerful than I, who would not invade my space, who would only treat me with respect and love. At my best, I try to take that kind of stance toward everyone I meet. To begin with the notion that each person deserves love and respect and gentleness. To refuse to violate someone else’s boundary. To know that intimacy and trust are earned. To refuse to try to dominate someone else or disregard another person’s wellbeing.

 

On this beautiful day, this beautiful day in the neighborhood, may we humbly ask God for eyes to see that which is too often hidden from us: the light that is the core of all that exists, the connection we all have with one another, the goodness that is each person’s birthright, the divinity reflected in our deepest selves. Let us seek and serve Christ in one another. God said, let there be light. And there was light. There still is light. May we see it.

Amen.

 

 

[1] Ben Turner, “Time Might be a Mirage Created by Quantum Physics,” in Live Science, July 11, 2024, accessed August 4, 2024 at https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/quantum-physics/time-might-be-a-mirage-created-by-quantum-physics-study-suggests

[2] Stephanie Pappas, “Near-indestructible moss can survive gamma rays and liquid nitrogen,” 
in Live Science, July 2, 2024, accessed August 4, 2024 at 
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/near-indestructible-moss-can-survive-gamma-rays-and-liquid-nitrogen

[3] Sara Novak, “When Dogs Smell your Stress, They Act Sad,” in Scientific American, July 25, 2024, accessed August 4, 2024 at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-dogs-smell-your-stress-they-act-sad/

[4] Delphine Farmer and MJ Riches, “Trees Don’t Like to Breath Wildfire Smoke, Either—and They’ll Hold Their Breath to Avoid It,” in The Conversation, July 30, 2024, accessed August 4, 2024 at https://theconversation.com/trees-dont-like-to-breathe-wildfire-smoke-either-and-theyll-hold-their-breath-to-avoid-it-227318

[5] Jacklin Kwan, “Ants Perform Life-Saving Operations—the Only Animal Other than Humans Known to Do So,” in Live Science, July 2, 2024, accessed August 4, 2024 at https://www.livescience.com/animals/insects/ants-perform-life-saving-operations-the-only-animal-other-than-humans-known-to-do-so

[6] Robert Lawrence Kuhn, “Confronting the Multiverse: What ‘Infinite Universes Would Mean,” in Space.com, December 23, 2015, accessed August 4, 2024 at https://www.space.com/31465-is-our-universe-just-one-of-many-in-a-multiverse.html

[7] Don Miguel Ruiz, The Voice of Knowledge (Amber-Allen Publishing, 2004), at 45-47.

[8] Id.

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