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<P><FONT size=4>I remember listening a number of years ago to a National Public
Radio interview with the former singer/songwriter Cat Stevens. He had long since
converted from a nominal Christian culture to a passionate observance of Islam,
now calling himself Yusef Islam. He was in Texas at the time raising money for
his Islamic schools by promoting the sale of his greatest hits CDs. I found
myself listening to this interview with some fascination having once, at the age
of 20, attended a Cat Stevens concert and having owned several of his albums on
vinyl. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>As I listened, I remember how condescendingly dismissive he was
of the Christian faith talking about how all those poor simple Christians had
just gotten the prophet Jesus wrong. How could anyone think that Allah could
have a son? How could anyone possibly take the great prophet Jesus and twist him
from the great teacher he was into some kind of false deity? </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>I thought of Peter on the mountaintop, very much like Cat
Stevens, wanting to make Jesus safely one of the prophets, wanting to keep the
Lord God very much at a distance from our broken humanity. Yes, let Jesus
perhaps be a towering figure like Moses or Elijah. That’s something a pious
person can understand and appreciate. </FONT></P></DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-9/070218-5-e.html"><FONT
size=4>http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-9/070218-5-e.html</FONT></A></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Samuel D. Zumwalt, 2007</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>...when the abbot heard that teaching, he thanked the rabbi.
He went back to the monastery to gather the monks and to tell them the teaching
of the rabbi. He told him, as he was instructed, that he would say the teaching
once, and then they were to talk about it no more. "Listen carefully," he said.
"The teaching is this: One of us is the Messiah." It wasn't exactly what the
rabbi had said, but they began to look at one another in a whole new light. Is
Brother John the messiah? Or Father James? Am I the messiah?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>In the days to come, as they went about their prayer life and
their work and their study of scripture, they began to treat one another in a
whole new light. Each one of them might be the messiah, and this new treatment
of one another, this new sense of expectation, was noted by the few pilgrims who
came. And soon the word spread. What a spirit of concern and compassion and
expectation can be felt at the monastery!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://day1.org/1030-seeing_things_in_a_new_light"><FONT
size=4>http://day1.org/1030-seeing_things_in_a_new_light</FONT></A></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Charles Duvall, 2007</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>I'm not really sure, but I think what he had in mind was a
chancery, a seminary and a college. Peter, in other words, was opting for a
religion of temples, institutions and shrines. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/chittister_3508.htm">http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/chittister_3508.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Joan Chittister, 1991 <BR>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Many years later when my dad was 83 years old, he died. I
remember that when the funeral was over, I walked away from the grave site and
felt painfully disconnected. I felt disconnected from my dad; I felt
disconnected from myself and from God. It was an uneasy feeling, and it stayed
with me for weeks. I had climbed the high mountain of grief, and I did not know
how to get off of it. One night I went home and went to bed early. I was lying
on the bed with my back to the door of the bedroom when, suddenly, I felt the
bed depress as if someone had sat down. The feeling is unmistakable. I knew no
one else was in the house. It startled me, and I was suddenly alert. After a
moment, I felt the bed move again as if the person had stood up. It was so
palpable for me that I turned over quickly to see who it was. As I looked toward
the door, I could see a figure going out of the room. The moment was so real to
me that I said out loud, "Dad, is that you?" I stood up and walked to the door
and looked down the hall. And, of course, there was no one there. But it was a
remarkable moment. It was one of those mountain-top moments for me in which God
had come to connect. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://day1.org/475-connections_that_count">http://day1.org/475-connections_that_count</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Robert Sims, 2004</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>I like the quotation by Henry Drummond, the Scottish
theologian when he said, “God does not make the mountains in order to be
inhabited. God does not make the mountaintops for us to live on the
mountaintops. It is not God’s desire that we live on the mountaintops. We only
ascend to the heights to catch a broader vision of the earthly surroundings
below. But we don’t live there. We don’t tarry there. The streams begin in the
uplands, but these streams descend quickly to gladden the valleys below.”
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_a_mountains_valleys_and_plains.htm">http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_a_mountains_valleys_and_plains.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Edward F. Markquart<BR>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
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