For those of us who toil in this imperfect world where often we see more of our barbarous instincts played out in our day-to-day life, I cling to this story as one of hope. What it tells me is that as I work on my spiritual life, as I mature in knowing myself in my walk with the Holy and enter into the intimate depths of life in the Divine, transfiguration is also a gift for me.

Simply defined, transfiguration means that something or someone has experienced the gift of metamorphosis. Now, metamorphosis is a zoological term referring to the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages, as it occurs, for example, in the lives of insects and amphibians. In the human creature, in us, it depicts our own maturation process in the life of the Spirit, a change in ourselves to something that is completely different from what we’ve known. Herein lies the hope. My goal in life is to become, as Rumi has  so beautifully put it, a wonderfully surrendered person, a person surrendered to my own barbarous instincts, befriending those instincts, offering them a place at the table where they no longer have power over me. When that happens, and it is a befriending that is ongoing, I become a changed person.

I’ve just returned from the Spring Intensive at The Haden Institute where I’m studying the deeper aspects of the art and craft of Spiritual Direction. I’ll be writing about this experience over the next few weeks sharing stories and insights. I have to say that this was one of the most powerful intensives I’ve attended where many seeds of transfiguration were sown. Our two main speakers were Post Laureate of North Carolina, Cathy Smith Bowers and Dean Emeritus of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Rev. Alan Jones. Cathy and Alan are extraordinary sowers of insight and transformation. For me, each session built upon the other, bringing me to a deeper communion with God and a deeper knowing of myself in relationship to God.

With Cathy, we explored the use of poetry in Spiritual Direction and had two small group sessions where she shared her process of writing and helped us begin to write our own poetry using active imagination to call forth the deep and abiding images in our unconscious. Once called forth, we began a holy dialogue.

Alan’s presentation focused on the crisis of faith in our time and invited us into a dialogue on the human condition as we struggle to live faithfully in our technology and media saturated world. Alan also presided over the Eucharist on two different occasions, one of which moved the entire congregation, gathered in the chapel, to tears. The words and symbols were deep and rich and touched a tender place, a place of yearning, in all of us.

I am still processing the events of those five days and learning something new with each pondering. It was five days apart, immersed in the gift of transfiguration. I’m looking forward to sharing the treasure with you.

When the time came, though, once I’d quelled the butterflies and got through it live, I discovered my inner exhibitionist.  After years of being the shy girl, the quiet bookworm, guess what? I loved to talk to a room of people, loved to hear myself read my own words aloud.  Over the years, I’ve stopped practicing as neurotically as I once did, though I still make tick marks in the margins of what I read.

I’ve never, however, heard someone read my work aloud.

Until tonight.  Tonight, in Sacramento, at Stories on Stage, as part of a series in which professional actors read stories by (mostly) local writers, Pam Metzger will  read my story “The Art of Fiction.”  I’m honored to have my work chosen, and I’m eager to meet Pam and the other featured writer, Julia Halprin Jackson, and hear her story read by Benjamin Ismail.  I’ve posted updates and invitations to my Facebook page, emailed writer listservs, and tweeted the event.  I’ve bagged copies of my books and decided what to wear, jotted down a few words to introduce the story (an abbreviated version of what I blogged a few weeks ago.

Now what?

Drive up there, smile, listen.  Easy enough.  It’s thrilling—and a bit nerve-wracking—to anticipate hearing someone else read my words.  Will she get it?  Will she know where to drop her voice, where to speak up?  C’mon, Lindsey, I tell myself; she’s an actor.  She was a radio announcer for twenty years.  She knows what to do with words.

We know, when we publish a piece of writing, that it’s going out into the world.  We know that others will read it.  Some will like it, some will love it, some will hate it, some will be bored by it.  I’ve had the experience, during a reading, of watching people walk out mid-story and of seeing others look almost alarmingly engaged.  Our words take on a life of their own.  They no longer belong only to us.  And that’s a good thing.

Last night, walking home from class with my husband, I mentioned that the event showed a low number of Whose Coming names on the Facebook invite.  “What if only two people show up?”

“You have to be zen about it,” he said.  He is not someone who often speaks in new-age platitudes, and I bristled slightly.  Where was the coddling?

“I’m just telling you I’m nervous,” I said.

Years ago, I attended a reading by a published, not-very-famous-but-respected novelist, the kind of writer referred to as “a writer’s writer.”  The event was scheduled for 7 p.m.; by 6:55, only a handful of people had showed up, including the store rep and a local publicist.  The novelist cast baleful looks at the store rep, who tried to maintain composure and a “let’s make lemonade out of lemons” attitude.  The novelist wouldn’t have it, canceled the reading.  I bought her book anyway (which wasn’t very good), and felt embarrassed on her behalf—but not just for the poor showing.  Whether two people or two hundred show up, they’ve made an effort to be there and they deserve to be treated accordingly.  As Alan Jones, former dean at Grace Cathedral, used to preach, Embrace a theology of abundance; reject the theology of scarcity.  And he wasn’t talked about number of seats taken.

So I’ll be zen about it.  After all, it’s not my event.  My story will be read, yes—but so will Julia’s.  And two actors will be performing.  However few, or many, people show up, we’ll make a community.  A community that values words and storytelling and bringing characters to life.  It’d be nice to sell a book or two, but that’s not why I’m going.

As a reader or a listener, what public readings have you most enjoyed? Dreaded? Found excruciating?  Walked home from on cloud nine?

*with thanks given where thanks are due