As I mentioned when the children were here with me at the front, I love mountains. I loved living in the mountains for a dozen years in Jasper and for nine years some time before that I loved living in Calgary – only an hour or so away from the Rocky Mountains. I hiked and camped in the mountains – especially during those Calgary years as much as I could – although never enough and I was able over the years to accomplish my dream of making it to the top of a few of them. I never considered myself a climber – and really if I had a choice between the easy way up and a technical, rope assisted, climb, it would always be the easy way for me. And really a mountain pass – usually much easier to conquer than an actual peak – was just about as good – usually windswept and offering a sweeping view of not only the trail we had taken to get there, but the trail that lay before us on the other side. When it comes to mountains, unlike the journey of life, it was the destination that I was looking forward to and not necessarily the technical difficulty of the journey.

Now I get the technical stuff, it just wasn't my interest. I was interested in the view, and being able to stand there, drinking it all in, and usually gasping in the thinned air – only partly because of the exertion I had expended in getting there.

Mountains do afford a most amazing view – but it's a big picture view – don't expect to see things in any kind of detail from the top of a mountain. But we need big picture views from time to time, don't we?

Sometimes when you are mired in the muck at the bottom, it's hard to see the big picture and we need to get out and climb above it to see where it is that we want to go, and even from where we've come.

So, when the biblical story wends its way to the top of some mountains I am right there. I've been there – I've answered the questions about why I did it – because it's there – is a pretty good answer – I wish I had said it first!

But the answer is more than the conquest and the literal good view. It is about more than a physical conquest, it is about being above, it is about the metaphorical view as well.

All those things are happening in the stories we heard today. It was a nice quiet place for Jesus to pray. It was a special place for Moses to go to have a one-on-one with God and come down with some rules for moral living. Take two tablets and call me in the morning – as the Hebrew song jokingly suggests!

Of course it doesn't have to be mountains. Some people are frightened by the claustrophobia of mountain terrain. There's the old story of the prairie farmer who didn't like the mountains because they ruined the view.

Just as the body of Christ needs all parts to function well, we need all kinds of terrain and all kinds of people who prefer one terrain over another – otherwise, places like Canmore and Banff would be even more crowded than they already are – well, that and the price of housing, I guess! The translation of the gospel passage I read this week said that when Peter, James and John were enveloped in the cloud at the top of the mountain, they became deeply aware of God.

I'll come back to that in a mountain, but the story of being enveloped in a cloud at the top of a mountain reminds me of a story from my own past. I was visiting my parents in Belgium where my Dad was serving in a teaching exchange. Having a free place to stay gave me an opportunity to do some European travelling, and one of them was the opportunity to go and visit the Swiss Alps around Lauterbrunnen. I can still remember my excitement as the Calgary boy – used to mountains in the 8-10,000 foot range – anticipated spending some time in and around the Jungfrau and Eiger, a few thousand feet higher and made famous by film and other mountain lore – of which I was an interested collector. When I got there I was justly rewarded by some great weather, but on one particular day I decided to cash in a voucher I had been given as part of the tour package. I would give me the opportunity to travel by gondola to the top of the Schilthorn where I would purchase my lunch in the revolving restaurant and look out on the surrounding countryside – and ponder the ski run completed by James Bond in Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Well I proved that a fool and his money are soon parted. I started the trip in a snowstorm, rode the gondola all by myself in the snow storm. Ate lunch all by myself – the only person in the restaurant – except for the three or four staff members, who I am sure were wondering about this silly Canadian – and then trudged around in the snow, eventually making my way to Murren – where the ski runs end. All in the snow – most often I couldn't see more than about three feet in front of me, and sometimes even less than that.

The point is that being surrounded by a cloud at the top of that mountain did not make me deeply aware of God – only deeply aware of how stupid it all was. The only thing I got out of it, was a good story!

It almost makes we want to edit the gospel story we heard this morning to say, after that comment about the disciples becoming deeply aware of God - your mileage may vary! You might end up just feeling lost and scared, or humbled and embarrassed, in a cloud at the top of a mountain!

All that aside, and I don't mean to minimize the importance of spiritual encounters – for I have also been in places and I have had times just like the one we heard about in Luke's writing.

God was surely laughing at me that day, but God has also been revealed to me many other times to more than make up for that one.

There was the time at the appropriately named Wonder Pass – that will forever remain in my memory as one of the most beautiful vistas I will ever see in my life. What was it that it had such an effect on me – the weather was beautiful. We had expended just enough energy to make the view worth it – and I am a firm believer in the principle that the harder you work to see it, the more impressive the view is – take that you heli-hikers! Although as my mobility and oxygen intake capability decreases with advancing years, I get the heli-hiking thing too! But something about coming to the summit of the pass and seeing what was on the other side, was more than a view of mountains, turquoise coloured lakes, golden needled larch trees and patches of snow and rock laid out before us – near and far. It was also a moment of mystical significance – a moment where I said a prayer of thanks and wonder and a moment when I felt large and small at the same time – one of God's creatures – privileged to be there and yet insignificant in that place of grandeur.

I wonder in this day and age about being deeply aware of God. In the ongoing push and pull about spirituality and religion – which seems to come up in conversations with increasing frequency these days? Is it just me? Or are you hearing and thinking about the same things? One of the gifts that the church – as an organized community of spiritual people – is a time and a place to put to word and thought the idea of being deeply aware of God. It is part of our language, it is part of our community norms. We are not adverse to talking about God in the space set aside for weekly worship. How many times have we said the word “God” already in our worship time today? How many times did you say “God” outside of worship this week? Not that you should – this is not a shoulda – coulda moment. It's an observational question? Data – not guilt! My point is that we are self-identified as church goers – as people who see the point of a spiritual aspect to our lives and we may go through week after week without mention of “God” in the week outside of worship. So thank goodness for worship! But I wonder if those who profess a spirituality outside of religion really have the moments that they claim – when they say “God” or whatever word, image, metaphor, plays that role in their lives – either spoken or said in the silence of heart and mind.

I'm not questioning it from a skeptical or cynical perspective. I am just wondering. For me, worship sets aside some time to be spiritual, just in case I forget to do that at any other time of the week. It gives me a time and a place to consciously be deeply aware of God.

Sure I can do that without worship – without the spiritual community – and I dare say that many of the moments when I have become deeply aware of God have happened in times outside of worship – but I wonder what those moments might have been like if I was a little less prepared, a little less ready to acknowledge them, a little less aware of how important such moments are, a little less understanding of what they are and feel like.

And so, for me, and I wonder if it might be the same for others, if organized religion can be understood as a teaching community, a nurturing community, a community of preparation – setting the stage for the identification, and deeper awareness of those times when we become deeply aware of God – and the ways that God can and will transform us from who we are to who we want to be – and who God wants us to be.

Just wondering...(pun intended)... Amen.