Sunday’s Gospel was Jesus on the mountain, well one of them. It’s the Transfiguration as witnessed by Peter, James, and John. They see it, and they’re not sure what they see. My priest called it a mountain top moment, in both the literal and the metaphorical sense. The Transfiguration is pivotal and bridges, through Jesus, the earthly life and the eternal life. Pope Saint John Paul II included the Transfiguration when he added the Luminous mysteries to the Rosary. At a recent day of reflection, Father P talked about those “born again moments” and that reminded me of Father J and his homily on Sunday about mountain top moments. We all have them in various parts of our lives and they all mean something different to each of us in those times.

In my mind during that homily, I was reminded  of a literal mountain top moment that I experienced. I was in college and had the opportunity to travel to the UK with my college roommate. She made all the plans and I followed her. I followed her to the point that I’ll follow you became a running catch phrase for the trip and the rest of our friendship including when I see her today nearly thirty years later. At some point she gave me the the itinerary with a few changes along the way, but I barely knew where we were going before we got there.

That level of trust and spontaneity sounds completely foreign to me, but at that time it was easier to just tag along. It was the trip of a lifetime and whatever happened, wherever we went would be amazing. I had no expectations and that let my mind stay open, probably for the first time in my life.

It was a wonderful trip: New Year’s in London, feeling the magic of Stonehenge, finding out that the buses don’t run on Sundays in Stow on the Wold, snow in the Highlands, but the most filled with wonder moment took place unexpectedly near the top of the Snowdon Mountain in North Wales.

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