Transformed

For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Sawyer's current Living by the Word column as well as past magazine and blog content. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century.

I love a good mountaintop experience. It’s a moment when everything changes. Insight flares up in the mind, illuminating the moment, the experience, the problem in a whole new way. You’re never quite the same again.  

One such moment for me happened in prayer when I was on a three-day silent retreat. I was doing the kind of begging prayer that we humans can fall into sometimes, a “please, please, please” prayer in which I prayed for relief from emotional pain. Honestly, I cannot even remember what was so bad at the time, but I was definitely crying while I prayed. “Please, please take away this pain,” was the refrain of my prayer, and it went on for a long time, with a vigorous intensity.