This alive and bright painting is titled Transfiguration Table. It is August, and nature is offering one last great push of light, wheat, flower and fruit before autumn. Even the wallpaper gets in on it all, reflecting nature's gifts. And we have been invited into this most modest home to share the simple feast day meal.
"There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light. Matthew 7:1-8.
Gospel and painting: everything suggests God's abundance. It is a brilliant summer day: blue sky with fruit trees that seem to sparkle. The window is wide open and the curtains transparent, allowing the room to fill with light and air. The lamp is lit before the piled up icons in the Beautiful Corner; an altar-like candle burns to welcome us as guests. All the more, wheat shafts bring the Eucharistic table to mind, and a brimming bowl is ready with wooden spoons.
At first, it strikes me as strange that there would be fruit lifted up by the window to ripen. But then, maybe it's not about fruit at all, but about us, that in Christ, God reaches into our world to ripen us in some yet unimagined way.
