Transfiguring Life: Unleashing the Power of Paradox by Andrew D. Mayes, Searcy: Resource Publications, 2025. vii + 200. £19.00 (paperback). ISBN: 979‐8‐38‐524413‐3

Andrew Mayes is an Anglican priest and Franciscan. Now a spiritual writer and leader of retreats based in England, he was for a time the Director of Courses at St George's College in Jerusalem. This book, the latest of several on Christian spirituality, draws on the author's personal knowledge of life in Israel (especially time spent on Mount Tabor, the supposed location of Jesus' Transfiguration), and aims to provide ‘a resource for individuals or groups’ that ‘can be used by spiritual directors or spiritual teachers as a retreat’ (1). In ten chapters Mayes provides a series of meditations on the Transfiguration. Each one begins with a black and white visual image (usually either a photograph of Tabor or an Orthodox Icon) and concludes with questions for reflection and prayer exercises. Every chapter has a present participle in its title (this is an exercising book): Chapter 1, ‘Reaching’ reflects on the ascent of Mount Tabor and the Christian's call to citizenship in heaven; Chapter 2, ‘Flourishing’ gives inspirational examples of transformation and the transfigured life; Chapter 3, ‘Daring’ invites us to see the Christian life as a path between control and risk, knowing and unknowing; Chapter 4, ‘Shining’ explores involvement in the world and detachment from it; Chapter 5, ‘Venturing’ uses the examples of Moses and Elijah to explore rootedness in tradition alongside willingness to change; Chapter 6, ‘Discovering’ focuses on the Orthodox insight that the transfiguration included the metamorphosis of the disciples' perception of Jesus; Chapter 7, ‘Journeying’ shifts between the geographically local and global aspects of Christian life; Chapter 8, ‘Trusting’ shifts between the temporal and eternal, present and future, aspects of eschatological hope; Chapter 9, ‘Engaging’ confronts the reality of Mount Tabor in a contested and all-too-tragically troubled Israel; finally, Chapter 10, ‘Dancing’ reorientates the reader, preparing them to move down from Tabor back to the world. Given Mayes' rootedness in the Anglican tradition, and that this is a relatively short book written for non-specialists, the most obvious comparison is with Michael Ramsey's The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ: since that was published back in 1949, the update is welcome. And whereas Ramsey was mainly concerned with what was then called “Biblical Theology” and held that Pope Leo the Great's was the greatest Patristic sermon on the Transfiguration, Mayes' approach is quite different. For Mayes' greatest debts are clearly to the Orthodox Churches. Icons by Theophan the Greek and Andrei Rublev are included among the images, and Eastern theologians (Timothy of Antioch, Leontius of Constantinople, Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory Palamas, Anastasius of Sinai) seem to outnumber Western ones (Franciscans are a notable exception to this rule; but Augustine does not feature). Of more recent writers, Vladimir Lossky is notably prominent. At one point Mayes acknowledges his debt to Rowan Williams for insight ‘given when I accompanied him to Tabor in 2012’ (109, n). Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the back cover comes with a warm recommendation from the former Archbishop of Canterbury, praising it as a thoughtful and demanding meditation in sympathy with aspects of Orthodox traditions of spirituality (The Orthodox tradition of thinking of the transfiguration as a transformation of the disciples' perception of Jesus—supported by Paul's language of metamorphosis in Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18—is here particularly well illustrated with reference to Gregory Palamas.). This study makes for a useful resource for retreat. It is not perfect. Exclamation marks are overused. There are some typographical errors (e.g., see 129). Very occasionally the prose descends into the platitudes of contemporary self-help writing: ‘on a journey’ (15); ‘leave behind your former ideals and conventions’ (16); ‘save us from burnout’ (24); ‘I understand what you are feeling’ (47); ‘people's self-worth’ (47); ‘body positivity’ (55); ‘poor body-image’ (55); ‘gaslighting’ (65); ‘cult of celebrity’ (91); ‘expand our consciousness’ (127); ‘mind-expanding outlooks’ (138). This approach might be what some people need; I found it distracting. The book is better than that, however. Mayes knows that Christian spirituality is not about empowerment, but sacrificial living; spirituality should not be narcissistic or closed in on the self (109). The reflection is at its most powerful and most serious when Mayes reminds us of the present day: ‘As I write, the Plain of Jezreel echoes to the booms of Israeli fighter jets, enroute to Lebanon’; “Mount Hermon… is under military occupation… in the United Nations buffer zone between Syrian and Israeli-occupied territories' (161). The place of the Transfiguration is juxtaposed ‘between glory and pain’, writes Mayes, and the challenge is ‘to be an agent of witness bringing transfiguring grace into situations of disfigurement and dehumanization’ (173). He invites Christians, in light of the Transfiguration, to work for such change. Self-flourishing here means self-sacrifice. Given this theological emphasis it is only right that the book is subtitled Unleashing the Power of Paradox. The introduction provides an overview of this theme, inviting us to explore the energy and dynamism of life-giving paradox and use it as a ‘springboard for reinvigorated Christian discipleship’ (1). Paradox, writes Mayes, ‘is not there to comfort us or confirm us in our thinking, but to disturb and stimulate’ (2). He defines paradox as ‘a statement that appears at first to be contradictory, but upon reflection then makes sense in an unexpected way’; a paradox leads to ‘a creative interplay of ideas, a dialogue that actually listens to both sides’ (11). Paradoxes, he says, ‘do not close down the subject’ but ‘opens up new horizons, fresh ways of thinking’ (12). I take Mayes to mean that they lead to potentially unending change. Now, I know that our traditions of theological writing make repeated reference to paradox. But I am also aware that what a theological paradox is to Luther or Kierkegaard may be very different to what a coincidence of opposites is to Eriugena or Cusanus. Simply using the word “paradox” in a theological discussion can sometimes obscure as much as it enlightens, and I usually want a writer to explain the difference between theological invocation of mystery and mere intellectual muddle. Asking vulnerable people to leave behind their conventional ways of thinking and leap into nonsense (of whatever stripe) can of course be a means of exploitation; and there are times when we all, quite rightly, need to exercise intellectual caution. There is no substitute for thinking. You might say it depends on the person and it depends on the situation, but I see no reason for not expecting a more critical approach to the use and misuse of paradox in theology, especially when ‘unleashing the power of paradox’ to transform someone's life means their ‘world-view might be shattered’ (16). Mayes could perhaps have done more in his introduction to explain the theme. It does, however, eventually become clear that the tradition of ‘paradox’ he has in mind is one grounded in Bonaventure's anticipation of the coincidence of opposites (188). It is, in other words, rooted in a tried-and-tested spirituality. In addition, Mayes' discussion of theological paradox as a type of both/and instead of either/or thinking (3 and 9) betrays his anglophone Anglicanism (Mayes does not mention it, but the both/and-either/or motif runs back to Eric Mascall's Christ, the Christian and the Church (1946: vii), and from there to an earlier article by Canon Balmforth). It is important to flag this point because it helps provide a contextual understanding of how the word paradox is being used (likely mediated by Rowan Williams and others). Ultimately, I am left with some questions. Mayes wants us to learn to live with contradictions, where the light of glory shines in a tragically fallen world. Given that the book reflects on his experiences of Israel, I want to know whether living with contradiction extends to justifying war as the necessary lesser of two evils. Is it sometimes, paradoxically, necessary “to be cruel to be kind”? Or is doing violence to keep the peace simply the “wrong” kind of paradox? Mayes indicates as much in his discussion of nonviolence, which is treated as normative (173–174). For me, at least, some of these harder questions are not answered by the argument of this book. To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself may be a mark of sainthood; but to bear with patience wrongs done to others may be a mark of actual sin. Such can sometimes be the tragedy of human moral experience. Mayes says this is not a devotional book, but a call to discipleship which invites us to ‘live a mystery’ (1). I am sure many will find it a useful guide.