Our vocation in life requires that we come down off the mountain of ecstasy and religious experience. If we try to stay on the mountain, then we are escaping life, and avoiding the God of Ecstasy in pursuit of just ecstasy itself. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem. Are we going with him? Mount Tabor symbolizes the spiritual nourishment that comes from a deep relational encounter with the living God while we are on the long journey home. Jerusalem symbolizes the resting place of God on earth, but it is also where Gods will and our cross, and we Surrender to his perfect plan and conform to him.
The journey can be long, and what if there is a dessert between Tabor and Jerusalem ?
This is why we need to be spiritual camels. Drinking deeply when ever we pass a spring of living water, or feasting the eyes when reaching a high overlook on the road. Fill your “hump” and keep moving. You can be sure there is another valley or dessert.
Viaticum is bread for the way. The sacramental Eucharistic presence for the dying. But our lived vocations also have little deaths or sacrifices hidden within it each day. How can we embrace those crosses courageously if we don’t also learn how to find the deep joyful presence hidden within the day, the Tabor moment. Discover it, kiss it as it moves by, do not linger, keep walking, hump filled, joy filled, toward your Jerusalem.
Oh Jerusalem Holy City of my longing, sometimes you seem near yet still far away. I embrace this moment for there is no other, the here, is Holy, as you Oh Lord, are fully Present.