It is a beautiful thing to stand upon the top of a mountain and look at the valleys below. There is a peace and perspective up there that quiets the soul, that stills fears and eases hurts. The wind, almost always present on a mountaintop, seems to blow away all that holds us to the mundane. For a little while, as we sit and reflect, life is always good on a mountaintop.
It is often a difficult thing to come down the mountain. Steep paths can cause us to slip more easily coming down than going up. Sometimes exhaustion sets in to make the last part of the journey harder than we expect. Instead of anticipating a panoramic view, we begin to think about the tasks and troubles we left behind.
Then there is facing the world we left, which somehow seems to be especially troublesome as we return to ordinary life.
This is true whether the mountain is a real mountain on vacation or a “mountaintop experience” on a retreat. Returning to ordinary life grates. We want to stay where the wind blew, everything difficult was blurred by distance, and peace settled in our soul and bones.
But we do come down the mountain. We return to ordinary life.
Jesus Comes Down the Mountain
So did Jesus, Peter, James, and John in the Gospel reading today. They are coming down the mountain from the Transfiguration—the most glorious of all mountaintop experiences. While Jesus has told those who went with him to NOT talk about what they saw on the mountain until after he had risen from the dead, they had just experienced it, and were likely still trying to figure out what it meant. Jesus had just encountered Moses and Elijah. The voice from heaven had spoken. He had come to realize to the point of being ready to talk about it, “My destiny is in Jerusalem. I must die on a cross, rejected by all who now at least sometimes laud me.”
That’s a lot to think about, to carry down the mountain in mind and heart. Perhaps Jesus, Peter, James, and John, were hoping for a day or two to catch up on the news from the other disciples, to rest, and to get ready for turning attention to Jerusalem.
It was not to be.
When they came down the mountain, they heard voices arguing. The disciples below had tried to cure a child who went into convulsions, who could neither hear nor speak. His father had brought him to be cured. These convulsions/seizures had thrown him into the fire and into water. His life was perpetually in danger from the simple life around him because of this evil spirit that had him in its grips.
But the disciples were unsuccessful. We don’t have more than the detail that there was “a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them,” but it was not a pretty site for Jesus as he returned to ordinary life.
AND…Jesus had some trouble with this one. His disciples hadn’t been able to cast out the unclean spirit. The father, doubtless disappointed, is on edge. He yells from the crowd, “Teacher, I brought you my son….I asked your disciples to cast out the spirit, but they were unable to do so.” Obviously, the scribes are there arguing to discredit him, not support him. The disciples seem pretty helpless. There is a large crowd.
This is not a good scene. Jesus realizes it, and expresses his own negative feelings, “O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?” It seems it was hard for him to come down the mountain, too.
But then he says, “Bring him to me.” The father brings him, the child goes into convulsions right there on the spot, and the father says, “IF you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
That IF must have gone all through Jesus. He replies, “IF YOU CAN, all things are possible to one who has faith.” When I pray that, I hear an edge to Jesus’ voice.
I can sympathize with the father. The disciples failed. Many things have failed to help. But, rebuked by Jesus he cries out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!”
And Jesus casts out the spirit. The child is healed.
Application of this Story Today
I love mountaintop experiences. As a child, I used to gain perspective by going to the top of the hill that overlooked the bottomland around the creek on our farm. I would dance in the wind, and it seemed I was dancing with God. It helped me gain composure in difficult times.
As an adult, especially as a widow, I steal away to Shenandoah National Park from time to time to think and pray and sit with God in the mist and the wind.
I often go away to St. Meinrad or to a park with natural beauty—even for a day—and it calms, settles me. I gain perspective.
I pray before the Blessed Sacrament.
But the reality is, wherever I steal away to, I always come down the mountain. I always return to ordinary life. And it SEEMS like what happened to Jesus happens to me. SOME PROBLEM hits me in the face as I re-enter ordinary life. I have some cause to apply whatever God gave me on the mountaintop.
And it seems that it grates on me. I want to stay on the mountaintop. I don’t want to re-enter ordinary life with its requests.
But I do not go to the mountaintop just to talk to God, nor just to be renewed or even transformed.
Those abrasive, “after the mountaintop” re-entries into ordinary life remind me: “I live in the valley. I live where there is need for me to ‘be compassionate.’ I live where people get on my last nerve. Yet I must carry the mountaintop with me…and serve.
Prayer
It reminds me of a poem by Kent Keith made famous by St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It is my prayer for today:
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true
enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway
