We Can't Stay on the Mountaintop

This Sunday we go along with Peter, James, and John as they have a mountaintop experience with Jesus. Literally. They have this sublime encounter in which they see Jesus in his glory. They witness him in the company of two of the great prophets, Moses and Elijah, and so they see beyond this seemingly ordinary guy they’ve been traveling with all this time and get a glimpse into the fullness of who he is. They have, it seems, kind of a strong reaction – as one would expect. In fact, Peter just starts babbling, something about building tents? I imagine they’re feeling a little fear, as well as astonishment, awe, and excitement. What does this mean? It’s amazing!

Peter’s suggestion to build tents in order to honor these prophets is a nice thought, but I don’t think it’s just about commemorating the prophets. I wonder if there’s something in him that’s trying to capture and preserve this moment, this mystical experience of wonder and encounter. And I think that’s only natural. When something happens that’s so wonderful that it’s life-changing, it’s normal to want to hold onto it. I mean, they heard the voice of God! Who wouldn’t want to grasp that experience, build a tent around it, and live nearby?

It makes me think of some my own spiritual experiences. I’ve never heard the voice of God out loud or had prophets appear before me, but I have been deeply moved by encounters with God. When that happens, something in me wants to stay curled up with God so I can keep feeling all the feelings instead of returning to the ordinary and mundane. I also think of some of the experiences my community has had together, assemblies and chapters in which we collectively experienced the Holy Spirit and felt so connected to each other. I tend to want to stay in that bubble of sacred space we’ve created together and remain close to each other.

I’m also reminded of the retreats I used to lead with high school and college students. The students would have deeply-felt mountaintop experiences. Some of them had never had an encounter with God before or such a close connection with their peers. Those experiences were so moving that they wanted to hold onto them. It’s almost like they were afraid to let go, as if they didn’t trust it. Once they went home, descending from the mountain and back into ordinary life, the experience could vanish. And maybe it wasn’t even real at all? Sometimes we would try to get together after the retreats to reconnect with each other. Those gatherings were nice, but not the same. Once you come down from the mountain, the glory is gone and you can’t recreate the experience.

Even if you’ve never been on retreat or had a mountaintop encounter with God, I bet you’ve had similar experiences. I think falling in love can be like this. The infatuation, the time spent just talking and being together, feels so wonderful. However, even those glorious moments of togetherness eventually become ordinary. The first argument happens. People misunderstand each other for the first time and even feel annoyed, and bam – they’re down from the mountain and back on the ground. I imagine the birth of a baby or adoption of a child could be like that. I caught a glimpse of that with my nieces. I remember being just captivated by each one of them. Inevitably, though, they get poopy or cranky. They have a tantrum, publicly and/or at home. It gets real. We still feel deep, deep love, but we’re definitely not feeling the glory, just the ordinary. And that’s normal. We’re ordinary people meant to live mostly in the ordinary.

In some ways, it takes a deeper trust to go down from a mountaintop experience than it did to climb up. Do you know what I mean? You ascend the mountain without expectations, and you’re just open to what will be. But then transformation happens, and there’s a shift in you. It takes a lot of trust to turn from that and climb back down: trust that God will be there on the ground like God was on the mountain, trust that the experience was real, and trust to integrate the encounter into the rest of our lives.

And I think God invites us to trust – and to come back down. We can’t live on the mountaintop, in a tent or otherwise. We’re just not meant to. We can’t sustain these experiences as a living thing, but we can preserve them in our memories like pressed flowers in a book. We take them out and remember them fondly and feel a hint of the experience again. The transformation that happened continues to live inside of us, even if the intensity fades over time.

Also, we need the mountaintops to be able to deal with the dark valleys. When I’m having a Psalm 23 moment, when I feel like I’m walking through the valley of the shadow of death, that’s a real spiritual experience too. I need the memory of the mountaintop to help me to trust my way through the darkness. If God is present in the heights, then God must surely be present in the depths as well.

The movement from height to depth to level ground is a normal cycle in the spiritual life, just like death and rebirth. And here we are in Lent heading toward Easter. We get the whole gamut of these extremes in just over forty days, which shows us that we need all of it. Just like we need the mountaintops to get through the depths, our suffering can make meaning out of resurrection times. We can’t have resurrection without first having death, and we can’t live through our death experiences without knowing that resurrection is coming. And then there’s the time in between when we just make dinner and do the dishes. God is in that too.

And so, we stay open to what comes, enjoying the heights, living into the depths, and being present to where God is moment by moment, even when the ground is just . . . level.

For Reflection:

• Have you had a kind of mountaintop experience? What was it like? How was God in it? Does that experience continue to live on in you?

• Have you ever had to walk through the valley of the shadow of death? How was God present with you?

• Where do you find yourself now? The heights, the depths, dying, rising? Or are you just walking along level ground?

You’re welcome to give this reflection a listen! Check out the Providence Podcast here:

By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP

Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She also serves on the Coordinating Council of Spiritual Directors International. She enjoys music, Girl Scout Cookies, and dancing.