Father Richard considers the inherent connection between anger and grief that ultimately heals and liberates:
After a lifetime of counseling and retreat work—not to mention my own spiritual direction—I have become convinced that most anger comes, first of all, from a place of deep sadness. Years ago, when I led male initiation rites at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, I would watch men’s jaws drop open and their faces turn pale when I said this. Life disappoints and hurts us all, and the majority of people, particularly men, don’t know how to react—except as children do, with anger and rage. It’s a defensive, reactionary, and totally understandable posture, but it often goes nowhere, and only creates cycles of bitterness and retaliation.
Over time, the Hebrew prophets came to see this profound connection between sadness and anger. It was what converted them to a level of truth-telling. They first needed to get angry at injustices, oppression, and war. Anger can be deserved, and even virtuous, particularly when it motivates us to begin seeking necessary change. But only until sunset, Paul says (Ephesians 4:26). If we stay with our rage and resentment too long, we will righteously and unthinkingly pass on the hurt in ever new directions, and we injure our own souls in ways we don’t even recognize.
Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III shares how the prophets’ grief empowers them to seek justice:
We must learn to grieve prophetically, seeing our world, even at its darkest, with the spirit and energy of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Those ancient teachers warned that the world was out of balance and that its repair requires our help. Grieving with them, we weep sometimes, yes, but without giving in to cynicism, hatred, and violence. We mourn as we work for change.… The challenge is to remember, even in our justified hurt and anger, that answering insult with insult and harm with harm just worsens the situation for everyone. We must remember the words of Dr. King: “Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.” When we grieve prophetically, we heal ourselves and the world by looking to shape the larger forces that damaged the soul of the person who caused hurt or anger, whether minor or devastating. [1]
Richard Rohr considers Jesus a model of prophetic tears.
In this way, the realization that all things have tears, and most things deserve tears, might even be defined as a form of salvation from ourselves and from our illusions. The prophets knew and taught and modeled that anger must first be recognized, allowed—even loved!—as an expression of the deep, normally inaccessible sadness that each of us carry. Even Jesus, our enlightened one, “sobbed” over the whole city of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and at the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35). In his final “sadness … and great distress” in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:37), “his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44).
Originally posted on August 6, 2023. Diana Butler Bass
Luke 9:28-36
Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said.
While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
* * * * *
A few weeks ago, on a Sunday evening after a speaking engagement, I flew out of St. Louis. My hosts dropped me off at the airport about three hours before my flight. As I waited, I noticed that the sky grew threatening and my weather app indicated large storms moving toward the city from the west.
“Maybe we’ll beat it out of here,” I said to a fellow passenger, my words wary in a half-prayer and half-plea for assurance.
No such luck. We boarded just as the storm was bearing down on the airport.
As it happened, my seat-mate was an airline pilot who didn’t much like the look of things out of the window. He was glued to a professional flight app on his phone. The weather worsened, and I couldn’t believe that we were actually going to fly through it. I’ve flown a couple million miles in my life and had never seen a plane take off in such a storm. I asked him questions — a lot of them. He could tell I was nervous as we pulled out of the gate.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “We’ll be just fine as long as there’s no lightning.”
At that moment, the sky lit up. “Like that?” I asked and pointed out the window.
He looked out and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. My sense was that even he wasn’t completely comfortable. He buried himself in his navigation app.
We took off. It was raining like a monsoon. The plane rose into the cloud, turbulence bouncing us through the ascent. People gasped, one woman let out a scream. I gripped the armrest and my knuckles really turned white. I was glad not to be hooked up to a blood pressure monitor.
It went on like that for about ten minutes — terrified in those clouds.
Then, the plane broke through the top of the storm. Smooth air greeted us. We left the turbulence below. The rest of the flight was uneventful — and the clouds beneath us soon dispersed.
Some Christians believe that today’s gospel story records a literal miracle of Moses and Elijah meeting Jesus on a mountain. I don’t know about miracles — we historians can be skeptical about evidence when it comes to miracles. That’s just our DNA. But I do recognize it as something else, something mysterious at the very least.
This episode sounds like thousands of stories from native religions or a transcript of a contemporary psychedelic therapy session. This gospel passage relates a mystical experience that was shared by Jesus and his closest followers. It includes all the requisite elements of such — prayer, the mountain, “dazzling” light, altered reality, hearing sacred voices.
And clouds. The transcendent zenith of the passage isn’t the appearance of Moses and Elijah — the prophets are the prelude to the real point of the story.
The climax is in the clouds:
While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
They were terrified as they entered the cloud.
I can relate. Clouds are scary.
There are, of course, different kinds of clouds. If you’ve ever lived by the shore, you might experience clouds as fog. Embracive, protecting, silent fog. Carl Sandberg’s cloudy “little cat feet” is an enigmatic presence: “it sits looking/over harbor and city/on silent haunches/and then moves on.” Or, if you live in the hills, you know the cloud wisps that cling to a mountain at night or in the morning, the sort of thickened mists that beg you to stay inside by the fire rather than venture out on uncertain roads.
They were terrified as they entered the cloud.
That’s a stunning line, if you think about it. Written centuries ago by someone who never took off in a storm, never descended through rough clouds, it is a metaphor for an experience of God on the ground. Certainly, the author had known violent thunderstorms and desert haboobs. But to describe the divine presence as a cloud — a terrifying obscurity, a kind of blindness — speaks as much to our contemporary experience as it did ancient fears.
The Transfiguration isn’t about celebrating glory. It is about encountering God in the turbulence. You won’t hear God — you can’t really know the presence — in temples that commemorate dazzling miracles.
Rather, the Voice speaks in the midst of tumult. And its directive is odd — not “come and see,” a phrase often repeated in the gospels, but it is instead, “listen.”
Yes, this is a mystical experience of the sensory perception of hearing.
And it is also oddly true in its description of life — our ordinary reality these days — and compelling in its practicality. Because the best mystical experiences speak to living with faith in the world. Everyone comes off the mountain, carrying only the memory of what was learned.
The news right now is a bit like staring out the window of the plane in St. Louis or being glued to a weather app while speeding down the runway. There are storms in every direction — and we’re going right into the clouds. There’s no way out but through. And it is terrifying.
But what if that’s where God is? In the turbulence, the instability, the wild windy currents? Longing for miracles — and building lovely temples on a scenic hillside — might be the delusion of our days. Too much of politics caters to our craving miracles; faith is too often about finding some magical safe place. Promising miracles is little more than planting seeds of cynicism. You may win an election or grow a church, but if you are seeking the quick spiritual fix, the fruit will be rotten.
Learning to navigate through the storm is what is needed.
Don’t cling to what dazzles, all those glittering images. On Transfiguration Sunday, God comes in the clouds: listen.
When lightning lit the sky in St. Louis, I closed my eyes. We were heading into the storm and there was no turning back. The plane rocked, making a way through the clouds. And I remember hearing inwardly: This is the way home, the only way. Breathe. Trust. You are not alone.
You are loved.
Listen.
It is we who need to be transformed.
