Transformation

Not surprisingly I still keep thinking of various things that occurred during our recent trip to England. One of the things that keeps coming to mind is something that my niece Susan was adamant that she wanted to do.

A few years ago Susan had gone to London with a friend on their way to a cycling trip in France. While they were in London they visited the small but very special Courtauld gallery. During that visit Susan had seen a relatively unknown still life by Monet which had touched her deeply and which she had never forgotten. So, on this trip she kept saying that this was one thing she really had to do: to see that painting again.

One of the qualities of great art or music or books or poems is that they can touch us at some deep level. They have a quality that is far beyond the superficial.  This kind of touching can be so profound that we do not find it possible to put our experience into words. So, it is not an intellectual experience but a profoundly spiritual one .There is a sense - sometimes an overwhelming one, sometimes a slighter one - that we will never quite be the same because of this experience.

Some people say they have been deeply touched by one particular sunset for instance, or by a view that leads them into another place, or a piece of music that somehow changes everything for them. This experience has, I think, a name: it is called transformation. Have you ever gone to the theater and been so carried into what is happening there that you know it has in some inarticulate way, changed you? That is an experience of transformation. It is, as I mentioned, not an intellectual experience - it is something much, much deeper and more permanent and it is, I believe, a gift.

I don't know whether Susan found her second viewing of the painting as powerful as the first - perhaps not, because often it is a single moment that happens, never to recur.  I believe we all have had such moments in our lives and I think such experiences are moments to treasure because we are touching that within us that is life-giving.