After the Mountain — John Speaks
We thought we were climbing for air,
for distance,
for quiet.
Just rock and dust underfoot,
the ordinary weight of afternoon.
He walked ahead of us
as always —
teacher, friend,
the one whose laughter we knew by heart.
Nothing in His step said
heaven was near.
And then —
no thunder,
no trumpet,
just light.
Not falling on Him
but rising from Him,
as though the sun
had remembered its birthplace
and broken out through skin.
His clothes burned white,
but it was His face —
God, His face —
like love with nothing left to hide.
The cloud came —
thick as unknowing —
and the Voice,
not loud,
but deeper than bone:
Listen to Him.
And suddenly
it was only Jesus again.
Dust on His feet.
Sweat on His brow.
The same worn cloak.
As though nothing had happened.
As though everything had.
We walked down in silence.
But the world would not fit back together.
The stones seemed thinner.
The air, alive.
Every face we passed
half-hidden light.
It came to me slowly —
like dawn finding the sea —
that what we saw
was not change,
but unveiling.
Not heaven visiting earth,
but heaven
always here
and briefly visible.
As if the flesh were a veil
drawn back for a breath.
Years later
I will try to say it:
In the beginning was the Word…
and the Word was life…
and the life was the light of all people.
I will search for language
large enough for that brightness.
I will say
We beheld His glory.
Not because it stayed,
but because once
we saw through Him
to the heart of everything.
And still later,
exiled, old,
the sea beating Patmos like a drum,
the light will come again —
not only on one face
but on the whole burning world —
lamps and stars and living creatures,
cities shining like crystal,
every tear lit from within.
And I will know:
the mountain never ended.
Creation itself
is climbing.
All things
moving toward that same radiance.
What shone in Him
is the end of all our becoming.
So now when I kneel,
when I break bread,
when I touch the wounded or the poor,
I do not worship a distant throne.
I bow to the Light
already pressing outward
through every living thing.
Because I have seen
what a human being looks like
when nothing blocks God.
And once you have seen that,
everything else
is shadow.
