Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

Do I sacrifice my corn dog and let my coke splash to the ground?

Let me back up. It must be told that after all the games I have watched in stadiums across the country, I am yet to catch a foul ball at a major league baseball game.

I came oh-so-close twice. The first when I was twelve and came down with a fever the Sunday I was to go to a Dodger game with my friend and his parents and they gave my ticket to their uncle who sat in my seat. I get a call that afternoon saying that the uncle caught a foul ball! Came right to him, my friend told me. Right to my seat.

The other was in 2016 while visiting my oldest daughter in Korea who was teaching there that year and she treated me to a baseball game. We bought food before we found our seats and I ended up with a corn dog (how did that happen?) in one hand and a coke in the other. Lo and behold, soon a foul ball was coming straight towards me. Thus my initial question above. What do I do? I didn’t want to miss out on my corn dog (What? Why?) nor did I want to spill my coke. I was frozen. I watched it bounce on the seat next to me and . . .

I can’t hear what they’re saying. Jesus and Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop. It is so easy to get distracted, to get caught up in stories about corn dogs and coke when so many serious things are swirling around us.

And it’s so hard to keep focused. Like I should have kept my eyes not on a baseball but on the three most important figures in Scripture standing on a mountaintop in deep conversation with a brutal and cruel society down below. This Transfiguration story in Luke 9 stands smack in the middle of Empire casting its shadow over every page of Scripture and every part of people’s lives.

I still can’t hear what they’re saying. Perhaps Moses was sharing his experience in saving people. Maybe Elijah talked about holding up truth to power. Was it a pep talk? A counseling session? Did Jesus do all the talking? We don’t really know except it had to do with Jesus going forward towards Jerusalem to meet the Empire head on, alone.

Moses and Elijah disappear. Peter, James, and John get sleepy and take a nap. A voice comes out of a cloud: “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him.”

I am not sure there is any scripture that is more clear, and more difficult to do. Love your enemies? Welcome the immigrant and the stranger? Care for the widows and the orphans? Live a life of nonviolence? Read the Gospels and do that which might be hardest for you. Become immersed in the stories. Become amazed by the roadmap they provide.

Apparently, we weren’t meant to hear the conversation but rather to wake up, stop talking, and do something. Like get back down the mountain and back in the world. Get down to where people are hurting and worried and frightened. Get down and do the things of Jesus.

So the baseball landed on the seat to my left and someone behind me casually caught the ball on the first bounce. Good for the person, I thought. For in retelling the story in the years since I realize I don’t need to catch a baseball in the stands anymore. I don’t want a corndog that tasted good to me when I was young. I don’t drink coke anymore.

I simply want to live in a world where we care for each other, cherish each other, look out for each other, rejoice with each other, work for the common good, hold another’s hand when we’re frightened, sing side by side, and listen for voices of love and compassion for all creation.

Grace and peace,

Harry