<html><body><div>Part 2 of tomorrow's draft</div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Have you ever been bowled over by the grace of God suddenly becoming visible in someone? It is, literally, heart-stopping, or heart-racing, if only for a moment. God gives us these moments in our lives to encourage us, especially when things seem to be out of control, when difficulties pile up in our lives, when we may find ourselves hard put to find anything about which to smile of laugh. God comes to us through all sorts of people and occasions, if only we have the ability to see and recognise them.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>However, we needn’t beat ourselves up about not being able to see or to make sense of these moments when we and God are in such a relationship that we’re filled with light and joy. After all, the disciples went down the mountain, hardly able to think straight, or to gather in their minds what they’d just seen and heard; they went down the mountain with the self-same, beautiful Jesus, and still managed to commit blunder after blunder, despite their occasional flashes of brilliance.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No, this aspect of our faith, of our relationship with God may not be easy to deal with, far less to appreciate. Yet that never stops God from interacting with us, from creating moments in which we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>CAN</u></b> experience “something beautiful for God”. Take the experience of Cindy Augustine, for instance.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She wrote, “</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>I was a block away from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on my way to my first appointment with a breast surgeon when I realized I didn’t have my wallet. I was in the back of a cab, and the meter read $18.70.</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“‘Stop the car,’ I said. ‘I’ll get out here.’ My voice cracked as I explained to the driver that I had left my wallet at home, something I had done maybe twice in my life.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“He looked at me in the rearview mirror and continued driving toward Second Avenue. It wasn’t quite 8 a.m. and I already felt defeated.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“‘Please give me your information and I’ll call you with my credit card number,’ I said. ‘I’ll send cash.’ I was on the verge of tears.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>He calmly pulled a piece of the receipt tape from the meter and started to write. He handed me the piece of paper with his name, address and phone number.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“‘If you pay me, good,’ he said. ‘If you don’t, that’s O.K., too,’</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“‘I will,’ I promised, reading his name and his address in Astoria. ‘I will.’</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>‘It’s O.K. if you don’t,’ he repeated.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“When I got home a few hours later, I saw my wallet sitting on my desk. I pulled out two twenties and took an envelope out of my desk. I looked at the little receipt slip and wrote the driver’s name and address carefully on the envelope and folded the cash in a piece of paper.” <sup>2</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>How did Cindy think about that experience? What did she think of it? Does she still think about? Obviously, she remembered it still a month ago when she wrote the story of her encounter. I have a strong feeling that this was, for her, a face-to-face meeting with God, albeit on the streets of New York’s boroughs.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Her life was transformed by the action of that taxi driver. And, from everything we heard, the taxi driver was equally transformed. Other people may see it differently, but, in the faith that repeats He “for us and for our salvation came to earth”; in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT</u></b> faith, I see God in each of the two who were in that cab, even as it was caught in the bustle and noise of traffic in New York City.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THIS</u></b> is why Jesus, God’s Son, came to earth. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THIS</u></b> is why Jesus was transfigured before three of the disciples. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THIS</u></b> is why we still read and listen to the account, told this week in the version found in the Gospel according to Luke. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THIS</u></b> is our primer. We are to hold on to the faith that, at least once in our lives, and possibly many times, someone will shine with such beauty of action, and behaviour, and speech, that we too will be transfigured, made beautiful by and for God.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>NOT</u></b> beyond our means. All God asks is that we keep alert for the signs God leaves around us, so that our hope will always be renewed. All that God asks is that we too may be open and willing to be the receptacle for that spark to flow from us, so that others too may find their lives transformed.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>God came to earth as Jesus in order to help us see just how incredible is God’s beauty, which is shared with us. God came to earth! Come, let us adore God! But, not to box God up, let us adore God by sharing, by seeing, by believing, by acting, by, with, and for the transfigured and the transfiguring Jesus. God’s glory is with us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>NOTES:</span></b></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></b></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>[1]</span></span></span></span></span><font size="2"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'>Transfiguration” -<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></i><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'>Unknown Icon Master, 16th Century, Hermitage </span><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'>Monastery</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_67519/Russian-Unknown-Masters/Icon-of-the-Transfiguration-%2816th-century%29"><font color="#0000ff">http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_67519/Russian-Unknown-Masters/Icon-of-the-Transfiguration-%2816th-century%29</font></a> Wikigallery - <a href="http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_67519/Russian-Unknown-Masters/Icon-of-the-Transfiguration-%2816th-century%29" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;"><font color="#0000ff">Icon of the Transfiguration (16th century) - Russian Unknown ...</font></span></a> </span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><font size="2"> </font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>2</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a href="http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=pMJKdIFVI6pghfX2HXfSzxRpdoyDWYNW0pv0kfxuasWsqgvMKdm6i1Pn91ln+TnU5RycfrCbcUHZ1PBi47w7szmJVIEYJ1aGi69iWf8M5A4+KCrHU4zA1tpp8SrcraKCrtZH37GTvXpvIK0ZzgmlxbEsOgs7gwaKRVPLHLSZPol3crLwmEq4GYXtUlb+33yfmiIziuLB/YY=&campaign_id=61&instance_id=99690&segment_id=110183&user_id=13776d46e58cd1c84bbfacad680c03b7®i_id=63205127" target="_blank"><span style="margin: 0px; color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Lucky Break on a Rough Morning</span></a></span></i><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>By CINDY AUGUSTINE Metropolitan Diary, The New York Times, 6<sup>th</sup> July, 2017 <a href="http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=pMJKdIFVI6pghfX2HXfSzxRpdoyDWYNW0pv0kfxuasWsqgvMKdm6i1Pn91ln+TnU5RycfrCbcUHZ1PBi47w7szmJVIEYJ1aGi69iWf8M5A4+KCrHU4zA1tpp8SrcraKCrtZH37GTvXpvIK0ZzgmlxbEsOgs7gwaKRVPLHLSZPol3crLwmEq4GYXtUlb+33yfmiIziuLB/YY=&campaign_id=61&instance_id=99690&segment_id=110183&user_id=13776d46e58cd1c84bbfacad680c03b7®i_id=63205127"><font color="#0000ff">http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=pMJKdIFVI6pghfX2HXfSzxRpdoyDWYNW0pv0kfxuasWsqgvMKdm6i1Pn91ln+TnU5RycfrCbcUHZ1</font></a></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#0000ff">PBi47w7szm</font></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#0000ff">JVIEYJ1aGi69iWf8M5A4+KCrHU4zA1tpp8SrcraKCrtZH37GTvXpvIK0ZzgmlxbEsOgs7gwaKRVP</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#0000ff">LHLSZPol3crLwmEq4GYX</font></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#0000ff">tUlb+33yfmiIziuLB/YY=&campaign_id=61&instance_id=99690&segment_id=</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#0000ff">110183&user_id=13776d46e58cd1c84</font></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#0000ff">bbfacad680c03b7®i_id=63205127</font></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><font face="Calibri"> </font></p></div></body></html>