Transfiguration

Today we celebrate the Transfiguration of our Lord and at my little cathedral, the priests celebrated Eucharist this morning.

I, however, was experiencing a different kind of--well, I won't say transfiguration--though I found it really easy to meditate about the meaning of today's collect and the readings in Morning Prayer.

Today, I spent the day at the spa that adjoins my health club at a posh hotel.

My husband had given me a gift certificate for my birthday, and today, I went in for the transformative experience of a massage, a facial, a pedicure and a manicure. I also got a half hour in a fancy tub from Germany with thousands of massaging jets and a gourmet lunch served in the "relaxation room".

Though I've had a few professional massages, this was my first ever manicure, pedicure and facial because, well, I would never spend money on myself like this.

As I was being massaged, and rubbed down with fragrant oils, I was thinking about how so many people in the world don't even have someone to touch them with tenderness, whether paid for or not. I was thinking about how physical we human beings are, how entwined body and spirit are. I was thinking about the kind of peace that God gives and the kind of peace that an expensive spa day gives.

I must say, that after several hours there, I began to have a silly, relaxed smile on my face. I thought about Mother Theresa's lined face and the inner beauty she had that some photographs captured, despite her homeliness.

I read Flannery O'Conner short stories and a little Vanity Fair magazine. I let my mind drift to some ideas for a Christmas-themed short story for "The Fiction Workout" a new online writers group that has assignments, and I'm preparing for October/November.

I think my story will be about an esthetician who shaves callouses off people's feet, and gives facials to people who can afford it. Then one day someone brings in a horribly disabled woman with curled feet and curled hands, unable to move anything but her eyebrows. Our esthetician, who is angry at her lot in life, angry about the rich people she waits on, angry at her husband and life in general, then has to give all these treatments to someone whose life is spent in a nursing home.

She begins to give the treatments, and something holy happens. The helpless woman receiving her services is in some strange way ministering to her in her helplessness, in her suffering, her silence.

As she massages and rubs the helpless woman, she becomes the woman anointing Jesus' feet with the ointment in the alabaster jar.