Sharing Secrets

I always read these verses and thought they were stupid:
Deu 29:4 Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
Mar 8:18 Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?
What is there not to see? What is there not to hear? But as I've grown older, I've come to see and hear for myself, and I realize the why of these words. Indeed, many still see and hear miracles every day and misinterpret the reasons and causes of them. The reasons and causes: both so important because the miracles are for the purpose of revelation and not just relief. This is the blindness. This is the deafness.

I dreamed two nights ago of a roll-top desk that I opened...opened angrily with a bounce because I had trouble getting it to stay open. But when it locked at the top, I immediately forgot my frustration, for I was suddenly enchanted to find inside and under its lid another hidden roll-top compartment: a smaller one about the size of a breadbox. I rolled it open and found it was an all-wooden spicebox...a row of wooden spice containers with two larger bottles centered...which I figured were the salt and pepper...(so that the light and dark that my husband's been dreaming over the last few months make an appearance for me as well.) This "inner sanctum" of seasoning was so long forgotten and abandoned that it sent up clouds of dust as I rolled it open. I could take this as a sign to study ancient and forgotten things. I could trace it to these:

Ezr 3:12 But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, [who were] ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:
Pro 22:28 Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.
Isa 23:7 [Is] this your joyous [city], whose antiquity [is] of ancient days? her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.
Jer 18:15 Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways [from] the ancient paths, to walk in paths, [in] a way not cast up;
And I think of my forgotten spice cabinet, the pure but lost incense, and I learn larger than I would if I were only to say, "I had an interesting dream."

I think about how I sat this morning in devotions and someone delivered to me a gift from my secret pal: two large chocolate bars. I could think, "How nice! My secret pal gave me something!" I could see my name scrawled there on the back of an attendance slip tucked under the yellow ribbon against the bars, or I could see that my name was written on a background of green--the color of love--and tied securely to the chocolate. And what of that chocolate? Two chocolate bars, not just one given into my hand. I could think of the two mysterious anointed ones who are ever standing before Your throne. I could remember the dreams You've given me about chocolate and its symbol as a reward attached to activity done in this world according to Your purposes. I could remember the article I read about the chocolate statue of Mary, Your mother, that strangely formed itself from drippings over night in a chocolate factory. I could receive that chocolate as a sacrament and a secret gift of incredible divine love. If my eyes and ears are working.


I think about how the girl who gave devotions played a song for us. She prefaced it by saying it was not her original choice, but it persisted in her mind until she decided to play it. She who felt compelled to speak on how tired we all are, and how we are told to go to You for rest. I could sit like the others and listen to the words, but I hardly need to. For these words are ones I've known for years. This is in fact my favorite hymn of all time, "Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy." Only I know it by its old haunting melody. This modern radio version she played had a new tune completely disparate from the original. I could be disgruntled, because I love the old melody and the haunting harmonies, and I don't like change. Or I could let the wind whisper in my ear reminders of verses from far away: a new song built on the foundation of an Ancient Word. So I look, and I see:

Psa 40:3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, [even] praise unto our God: many shall see [it], and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.
Psa 98:1 [[A Psalm.]] O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvelous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.

And finally, I come full circle in thinking of Your holy arm.
And I think of the dream I had almost exactly a year ago. In it, You were somehow joined with me, and we were somehow both a previously-sliced loaf of bread and the hand holding the knife. I think how that made no sense at the time, and how I could barely put it into words. Then I realize how far I've come this year in understanding better how we are "in" each other. I see better how very deeply You can invade my being and how deep is Your desire to pull me into You. In that dream I see the cutting of the bread, and the knife as I hear Your words echoing across the aeons, "This is my body broken for you." I think of the electricity that ran up my arm when that bread was severed, jarring me enough to wake me from a dead sleep, strong enough to leave a tingle in my arm. And now? Now--as always--I can deduce one of two things:
I could say I'd simply slept on that arm too long and it was asleep so I dreamed imagery to match the physical stimulus. Or...
I could say You were sharing a secret, a covenant-cutting secret like You shared with Abraham; one that draws nearer with every dream, every scripture and every day that passes.
The choice of interpretation is ever mine. It is the greatest testament to my free will, and/or the greatest evidence with which I could be cursed.

So what of my eyes and my ears again?

Rom 11:8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.

Ironic, that I learn so much from You in my sleep as it melds with the words You breathed through the ancients, but who are You saying is really slumbering after all?