In my religious tradition, The Feast of the Transfiguration is a very special day that celebrates a very spectacular event in Jesus' life. It causes me to ponder my own experiences of the spectacular. Nothing even close to what the Bible speaks of but important to me nonetheless.

The birth of our children. The death of loved ones. Travels to distant lands. Particular hikes on nearby mountains. Is this the stuff of the spectacular? Indeed, but there is more than these occasional incidents. The possibility of spectacular experiences occurs every day for me and, I humbly suggest, for you as well. It is only dependent on our openness to that possibility.

I believe that one of the great fallacies of contemporary life is the ever present conviction that quality time is a substitute for quantity time. We are all so busy bustling hither and yon that we have convinced ourselves that we can locate shorter periods and still experience equal profundity. Some of this is understandable and some of it is just plain foolish. The sad restrictions placed on divorced parents who have only part-time custody of children would be a good example of this tension of time. But I think we are only fooling ourselves if we think that such a situation is just as good as being with our kids day in and day out. Although those spectacular moments can come out of the blue, most often they come out of the gray...out of the ordinariness of our lives, out of routine, out of the rituals that fill our days. I am, for instance, all in favor of couples taking time out from their careers to nurture their relationship with special events and evenings out but if our expectation is that such isolated incidents will make up for the daily development that is fundamental for healthy relationships, we will be sadly disappointed.

As we age, many of us realize that our so-called quality moments as parents or partners were really limited by the quantity of time we were willing to give to our children or spouse.

I often have the sad duty of listening to a husband or wife desperately plead for a return to the ordinary. Years of neglect and abuse cannot be easily erased. Many a despairing spouse has begged for that spectacular experience, that miracle that will put things back together after years of tearing it all apart. Quality is not a substitute for quantity. Miracles certainly do happen but it has been my experience that those spectacular moments of life are often the result of patient and persistent presence.

A good example of our desperate yearnings for the spectacular can be found in the overwhelming success of our state lotteries. "All I need is one big hit and my problems will all be solved." I am certainly no financial expert but I suspect the odds for achieving financial security are enhanced far more by regular savings than they are by frantic gambling.

Spectacular moments often come in rather unspectacular ways. A rose is a rose is a rose until you stop and smell it, until you gaze upon the precious petals, marvel at the mystery of its creation. That rose becomes a very spectacular thing.

As I reflect on the transforming moments in my life, I realize that I have never had the lightning bolt from the sky or the blinding vision from the heavens and, furthermore, I don't think I want to spend a lot of time waiting for one. I believe that life-transforming events come not just in the brilliant flashes but in the constant, faithful, ordinary living of our days. Days that are filled with power and beauty...sometimes spectacular, often very subtle. In one sense, I can't claim to have experienced too many spectacular events but in another sense, I have them every day.