Mountaintop experiences . . . everyone has had them. Some people have even had them on the top of physical mountains. I’m not one of those people. I have never been on top of a mountain, I’ve barely been on the top of a hill. But I have had “mountaintop” experiences.
“Mountaintop experiences” are the shorthand we have for profound experiences which generally take place out of our usual context. Lots of young people have them on camping trips or retreats of some sort. Many people have had them while meditating or traveling or otherwise being occupied with out-of-the-ordinary things. When we have these experiences we frequently want to stay where the experience happened. Much like Peter, we want to pitch some tents and just stay . . . but we can’t. We can’t stay on the mountaintop because there is nothing there but ice, snow, cold, and us. We need to come down the mountain and put the reality of our experience to use. We need to take our newly changed persons and work out the change.
This Sunday’s sermons are about this kind of change but they are also about how we need to do our part to make them happen. We can’t have mountaintop experiences at our beck and call but we can make sure we are ready for them when they come and we can climb a mountain.
Blessings,
Thank you for the visual. I wonder what my “working out the change is”. I think for me it is in writing. Finding my talent (which I have discovered is not painting) and finding ways to grow with it. The “how” is what I am contemplating.
You are very welcome. Writing is a talent many of us actually have, which is nice considering how many of us were told when we were younger we didn’t have it.
I’d be delighted to hear more about what you are writing and what you are discovering.