To name life is to bring it into being, to bring it into the light. That day, too, Jesus calls, by name, “Come into the light,” he says, calling his three friends.
To come into the light by walking the crest of a mountain. To climb and be astonished by the density of silence. To climb and feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. To climb and feel a pang in your heart, thinking of the boats left behind on the lake. To climb like those who ascend to Jerusalem. To climb like Abraham, seeking to understand whether God is a Father or an Executioner. To climb like Moses, questioning whether it is worth freeing a people who refuse to know freedom. To climb like Elijah and sense that God dwells in the Emptiness. To climb, following behind Jesus, in search of the face of God.
To see God. In the end, nothing else in life really matters.
And on that mountain—if I could truly describe what happened in that infinite moment of prayer—I would say I saw a man being born. Jesus came into the light as He prayed.
It was clear that He was a man called by name. It was clear that, in that moment, Jesus allowed Himself to be seen, naked, fragile, in love.
We waste words. We recite prayers. We fill the air with empty sounds and remain in the shadows. He, in silence, in the light, became light.
We climbed the mountain to see the face of God, and we were seeing the face of the Son. But it was not just the face of a man. It was the face of a man seen with love. Like when someone falls in love with us, and in their eyes, we see adoration, a light we never even knew existed. And we… we become light.
To pray, to love, to be born. Always coming into the light.
