Somethin' Wonderful

Today's photo is of last night's lunar eclipse as seen in Pensby, taken on a very ordinary compact digital camera. For once the night skies were clear enough to observe the moon turn copper as all but a smidgen of the sun's light was blocked by the Earth. It amazes me that this is not an uncommon occurrence but it is the first time that I have seen it. As a family we spent a good ten minutes standing, open mouthed in awe looking at it.

Today's gospel reading was the Luke's account of the Transfiguration. Fr Simon's homily opened up the idea of seeing the wondrous in the mundane. He illustrated this by reading a passage from An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan who was held hostage in Beirut by Hezbollah. The passage described how a humble orange transcended its mundane state and was transfigured in Keenan's eyes as a result of the deprivation he experienced in captivity. This put me in mind of a book I once read by Columbian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. One of the features of the writing of García Márquez is magical realism. Ordinary things, such as umbrellas, are described in such a way that they become extraordinary, the magical sits comfortably alongside the everyday.

This concept intrigued me when I was engaged in an important stage in my spiritual journey. It opened my eyes to the importance of giving everything appropriate attention. I suppose it could be described as the art of being 'fully present' or 'living in the moment'. It taught me to be attentive to the fragrance of lavender on a summer evening, the lush greenness of the grass after a spring shower and the song of a solitary bird at dusk.

The playwright Dennis Potter was interviewed by Melvyn Bragg when in the advanced stages of terminal cancer. It is no secret that when we accept life as finite, we see things though different eyes. Potter described this phenomenon to Bragg between pauses to take sips of liquid morphine from a hip flask. He said that outside the window of his study at his home near the Forest of Dean there was an apple tree. He went on to describe his impressions of the spring blossom on the tree as the "blossomiest blossom". This ordinary blossom had transcended its natural state. Potter probably hadn't noticed it until he realised he would never see it again. The certainty of death had enabled him to be fully present. There is wisdom in that.

Coincidentally, the theme of this year's Greenbelt is Heaven in Ordinary. If you would like to explore these ideas further, you could do worse than to be fully present to the muddy fields around Cheltenham racecourse over August Bank Holiday weekend! Click here for information.