Beloved and the Bride...sanctified (an epilogue)

In the end, the man who found the moon in the desert
remained with the boy, so he grew
in stature and mysterious wisdom
over the years.

The man who found the moon in the desert
remained in the land of perpetual autumn
and now, too, of moonless nights.
No one in the village thought it strange that the moon had
disappeared--
no one but him.

Sometimes he looked out across the woodland
where she had taken him walking--
he looked out from the high gabled windows
of that house couched in the hills,
the house where she'd lived
and where he now tended the boy.

If he were not locked into the boy's life
and the days of moonless autumn,
he might have been able to see her
even still.

Many were days,
when she had gone, in life, into that forest alone,
and met her Beloved--
but unbeknownst to all those folk
who lived near those woods.
And these visits renewed her,
her faith, her vision, her hope, her strength.

There like young lovers, they played
hide and seek among the trees.
She always seeking him;
he always being found
and at just the right moment in the game.

Somewhere in the dark place she remembered the game,
and so she knew right where to look,
to find the tree where he hid
even in that black tangle.
Now, for her, the memory of that dark place--it was vague,
but she knew it was true,
for she found herself once more
playing hide and seek.
Except that now, her part was changed.

Suddenly, this newer new creature knew a new thing:
and so she darted behind a tree,
only to discover her Beloved
hiding stalk-straight
behind an adjacent one.

"So, do I get to hide now, too?" she asked playfully.
And her eyes gleamed silver,
shot through with the beams that the now-dark moon
had given as offering.

The Beloved laughed
the laugh of a belly satisfied with good results
of a throat open with relaxed joy
of a life well lived and finding ever more
the hope and the future.

If the man who escaped the dragon
had not been committed to the boy
and to the land of moonless autumn,
he might have been able to see them
darting
playing.


But, unseeing did not matter.
For in his heart, he knew lived:
lived and played in those woods.

He knew, all the more as his peripheral vision
was groomed to gaze with frequency
not on singulara trees
whose life would span from sapling to pulp
and be ended and forgotten and replaced
by yet a new sapling;
maybe of the same nature, maybe different.
No, association with the boy
and residency in the house of the woman,
these taught him to cast his gaze
on the forest at large
where he would see
a creation timeless and enduring.
A creation now,
so full of joy
that it could hardly hide its fire,
as its patient awaiting
for such groundskeepers as these lovers
was finally rewarded.

Awaken the Dawn (conclusion)

Tales that spring from the imagination end
with conclusions.
Some satisfying, some unsatisfying
but always the words
"the end"
make their appearance.
Tales of life
are not often so.

The man who stumbled into this haven,
this strange and mythic war zone,
looked down through the acrid air
to see the lifeless queen lying
on the ground.
One arm lay above her head,
the other slung across her belly.
So she lay in repose
or else stuck in some exotic dance pose.

But even as the man looked at this quiet queen
his countenance locked in stunned perplexity,
the old man--
that same old man,
who IS he?--
spoke from beside him,
holding his hand even yet.
"Look up, man.
And see more than the fallen."

So the man looked up to see the wall of fire
still encompassing the circle of people.
And now he saw
it wasn't a wall at all.
For they were encircled by living swarming fire,
by glowing horses, tall as elephants
whose feet shot out fountains
of fire and water
wherever they clomped at the earth.
And the chariots they pulled
were aflame with life-light
so bright that their form was nearly
indistinguishable.
As for these who rode in the chariots--
they were too ablaze with burning light
to be discernible.

And the old man said,
"Don't you think she'd have been saved
if the wall had chosen to make it so?"
But knowing this only made the man angry.
"You'd better make your next point, old man,
and not leave me long at that one."
The man said through gritted teeth.

Another townsperson knelt beside the queen now,
ministering to her lifeless body.
"Wait, she still breathes.
Faintly, but she breathes."

"Of course she breathes,
she is not dead, only sleeping.
Although in her current state of perception
she surely thinks herself gone,"
said a new voice, chuckling--
a voice booming with virility
like all life past and present sprang
from its resonance.

The would-be warrior looked up to see this one
a man whose inner light burned off the last of the mist and the smoke
clearing the air of all impurity,
leaving it filled with naught but His own vitality.

And a deep ache that had swelled
undefined
now crested in the warrior,
crashing to conscious thought at the knowledge that she lived--
"Am I the reason for the attack of the dragon?
If I had not come,
would she have been reduced to this state?
Or would she still be stepping softly
in her woodlands
full of autumn?"

"Be at peace, man,
for you have no such power, and
therefore no such guilt to embrace.
The dragon had two heads, you see,
but only one that would attack her.
And that was his downfall, written on the wall.
Your coming is indeed caught up the timing of all this,
but not in the start of it,
but rather in its conclusion.
I would show you what the Queen would have you see.
And then I must go after her; as I promised her."

So the warrior-to-be stood tall
and walked with the man who knew much
until they came to a place,
a place too expansive
for the man to quite perceive,
yet what he did perceive,
made his heart feel as though it would burst.
"Look over there," said the voice in his ear.
And he looked to see a set of twin mountain peaks,
dizzying in their height and beauty.
But then he peered closer
and realized these were not mountains at all!
Though the peaks were certainly
tall, remote, unattainable much
as the pinnacle heights of a mountain range,
these were nonetheless another thing:
these were the joints of folded wings.
The man caught his breath
at the sight of such a being.

Where the dragon had been terrifying in his fierceness,
this being was fearsome in his majesty.
The being's body stood in what came to his eyes at first
as the mountain gap,
where now he realized he saw a glowing brilliance
almost in the form of a man.
At the very base,
where what first appeared a shadowed inlet of snow across a valley
was instead the gleaming train of a linen-light robe.

Suddenly, the man saw the Queen again,
standing there in the folds of that train,
and she was thanking this being for his warfare on her behalf and behalf of her people.
She too wore a mantle of such deep hue
that it could only be worn by queens, for humble glory,
and by harlots for audacious foolery.

As the Queen sang her song of salutation and thanksgiving
for the work of this one so like a mountain,
she suddenly bore in her hands a sword.
And she took the sword and shot into the air like a bird,
so that the train of her robe grew expansive and beautiful.
Now scattered across it were the likes of many hands
springing up from its woven depths to reach with her
for the things of truth and glory.

And so this train that had been given to her
at her coronation spread out behind her,
ever widening to fill the earth and sky with its folds.

"Do not grieve for her fall,
for to this she was predestined,"
said the voice in his ear,
but the voice was no longer the voice of the man
who had been his 11th hour guide--
rather it had become a voice transcendent:
a whisper that roared--
a whisper, because no mere man could perceive it's audible intonation
and live;
a roar because no matter how hushed and controlled the power
of the source of these words,
the impact of any sort of speech from this one
was still overwhelming.

Then as the man watched,
the queen floated there, holding the sword aloft.
She presented it to the one who was a mountain,
and the mountain received it.
Then the queen and the reach of her robe spread out
as clouds upon the sky.
But the sword fell down to the earth
and as it fell it lost its sleek gleam
and took on a new form.
By the time it reached the foot of the mountains,
it was but a little boy.
The would-be warrior peered closely at the child.

"That's right," said the voice in his ear, audible and
supremely human yet again.
"You've already met him.
But he plays with the marbles of matter,
don't forget.
Now do you perceive why you're here?"
And somehow, the man knew.
Suddenly the child was close, even at his feet;
but now, this little one was without his uncanny acuity and piercing inquiry,
he was but a child frightened and confused.

So the would-be-warrior who came to this place as a strange pilgrim
seeking war-craft secrets--
clues to take to his own land,
this man who came to this place
that he might take from it power
to wield against his challengers,
yes, even this one who expected a destiny of renown
amongst both kindred and foes,
this man in the end was forgotten by their likes
until one day no one even thought to ask of him--
"whatever happened to...?"

This man took the pudgy little hand of a child,
and after giving him a small measure of comfort,
led him back to a quiet village
in a mythic desert,
where a singular dead tree
bore one leaf...

...Awaken the Dawn continued...

The Queen and the man
considered each other
and what to do next.

When suddenly, a roaring sound
filled the empty space
in the very molecules of the air.
Her chin came up,
her eyes blazed.
"The wall is rising--" she said,
turning quickly.
So she set her foot forward
with purpose
and integrity.

The warrior to be
followed quickly.
"The wall?"

"The one,
and the One,
that rises as a standard
when our Enemy's flood
rushes toward us."
She looked wryly at the man.
"It appears you will see us fight
after all."
Then her eyes grew first wide
(as a new realization struck her)
and then again, narrow
(as its implication led her thinking.)
"Maybe you are why our Enemy approaches."
Then she hurried her step again.

"But I am no companion to your enemy!" cried the man.

"No, for the wall did not respond to you,"
agreed the Queen.
"Still, you could be a factor."

Before he could ask her to elaborate on her meaning,
they came upon a clearing full of people,
people standing in a circle.
The commoners held hands,
and a hum of cosmic power seemed to emanate
(but in starts and sputters)
from their union.
A place broke open in the ring of struggling human dominion,
and the Queen took her place there.
The hum grew steadier,
but remained feeble in strength.
She turned, looking over her shoulder at the man.
"Though you are a stranger,
it is still my request that
you fight in our company.
Will you fill this remaining gap in our circle?"

The man thought:
This is how they make war?
And partly because he did not fully perceive
what was before him,
he stepped into their circle.

Nevertheless, when he clasped the hands
to his right and his left,
the spark and the current
took an exponential leap
and the circle crackled.

Then he saw things he had not seen before:
a wall of fire and shooting steam roared
all around the circle,
as foul water and good,
as cleansing fire and destructive fire
fought for dominance,
so elements nearly indistinguishable from each other,
wrestled for supremacy,
and the people prayed.
Gradually, the man realized that this was their warfare.
Power to the good!
Wisdom to the righteous!
Strength to the holy Creator!

Then, because the bud of these prayers looked promising to bloom and not wither,
the source of the bad revealed itself
for it knew no other way to slice that bulging bud from its stem--
so a creature broke through the fire and steam;
and the man felt transported
into some medieval artistry,
for this creature was a dragon,
in the classic sense.
Two-headed with a tail that lashed,
its mouths that breathed explosions
into the order of life.

Then the man joined his heart
to the prayers of the circle.
As they prayed,
the creature folded in upon himself,
twisting, wrapping himself in smoke;
and the acrid smoke
and the tiny oily rainbows
slithering across the black steam all around him
gave evidence:
The creature seduced.

"Why do you despise my power?"
It whispered with a contrived laziness.
Don't you see my power makes me lovely?
Respect me, for then why should I harm you?"
And so the creature spoke in a language
spoken by the people
spoken for many a generation,
words whose etymology was born of much trading
rather than being the offspring of revelation
or of loving and gracious inheritance.
So the man came to see
that this danger was greater
than what could be posed
by any voiceless weapon fashioned
by the hands of man.

"Look away," said the Queen.
"Or be mesmerized."

The man looked back along the path he'd walked with the Queen,
back toward the forest,
where a mighty flow of light was rising.
Like the energy waiting in a drawn bow, it swelled forth.
"What is that?" he cried.
The Queen looked where the man looked,
and she smiled.
"That is the tree I showed you.
That which appeared dead
reveals its hidden life,
for such a time as this.
It is a new life, a new thing.
Let it now springforth."

So the arc became a sickle,
and an arrow transformed into a sword
empowered to smite the heads of leviathan.
but not until the Queen
...fell.

Continuing...

Does anyone have preconceived notions of what he will find
when he enters the secret pavilion of the Lord?
Let him lose those notions.

When this man entered the curtained realm,
(while wind chimes rang gently around him)
he hardly realized he had such notions,
until he found them unfulfilled.

Had he expected the woman to be
lovely?
(Dewy and nubile.)
Had he expected her to be
wise?
(Meditating on some elevated rock?)
Had he expected
divinely ordained mutations?
(A couple of extra arms, or
writhing snakes in her hair?)

What he found?
An ordinary woman.
In an ordinary gown.
She stood
sipping not so ordinary chocolate
from a scuffed,
pink plastic mug.
And she looked up at the curtains
as if ever seeing them
for the first time.

But then, she looked at him.

And all his former expectations
became truth again
in her eyes.
How are eyes that have no guile and no agenda
anything but lovely?
How are eyes that see the horrors of war
yet still exude love (rather than fear, or hate)
anything but wise?
How can such eyes be anything but
a divinely ordained mutation?

And although she'd never met him before,
she reached her hand out to him and invited,
"Walk with me."

She took him from the pavilion of their meeting,
into the royal woods,
where all traces of the outlying desert
were inconceivable.
The skies looked down
and began to swirl strange patterns in their clouds.
Their crystal layers appeared
like a field of slate
under thinly running waters.

The season was high autumn.
"Not until I came into your land did I realize
it was autumn," he said.
"My days in the desert did not afford me a good sense
of the passing seasons."
She reflected for a moment. "Well,
it may not be autumn
elsewhere.
But it is always autumn here."
He was confounded by that statement.
"Always autumn?"
She touched one leaf, still brilliant green.
alongside another, brilliant orange.
"In this place, it is right to always see both.
The threat of looming winter,
does it not bring out the most noble colors?
But life is not yet completely asleep."
And he realized she was right.
It fit this place.

So they walked trails
where long and elegant seed pods
sliced deep burgundy cuts,
in mounds of moss.
They walked where dead leaves
clattered against the trunks of their host trees,
refusing to take their fall silently.
They walked along a stream
whose beach like flagstone, rocky smooth,
had so many muted stones
lying level, flat in the sand;
laid ther,
by the press of waters long removed, but not
without their residual influence.
And although he'd sworn to himself
to disregard the former paths
of flowing streams,
at this Queen's side he could not help
but notice.

They walked where a small tree stood--
slender and clothed in dead leaves.
Like brown husks not reailzing their abandonment
they nevertheless clung
in their little leaf cities, but for one
a small one, and bright
glowing green
on an otherwise bare and fragile branch.
"We're getting close to what I'd show you--"
said the Queen.

They walked beside thick fallen trunks,
whose pulpy powder lay at the mouth of the breach
of their splendour.
And, they walked near a standing tree whose base
was a cavern,
a hidden opening.

The man reflected on
some childhood story he recalled:
such a "doorway" at the base of a tree served
as gateway to a magical underground world.
The Queen smiled--almost coyly.
"What a fanciful story
for the likes of you
to remember."
So the man met again
his purpose.
And as men of war don't cotton soft
to stories of secret havens--
he renewed his vow to be
a serious man.

They walked where the water of the river broke to form
a side pool beneath a stand of oaks.
"What a shame--" said the Queen.
"Shame?" asked the man.
"Look into the waters," she said.
"You'll see the fate of the acorns."

Indeed, in the shallows
a muddy ground-surface was littered with tiny acorns
perfectly preserved,
un-growing.
The Queen tilted her head, and whispered,
"Did they choose where they would fall?
For that matter, did the tree of their origin
choose where it would grow?
But who can call the effects of the water bad?
In fact, the water feeds the tree's roots.
It's a puzzlement."
The man frowned.
First, she teased him for being fanciful,
then she took him
right back into fancy.
"It is simply the way of things--"
he said gruffly.
"Yes, but how do you calculate
the rightness in it?"

(Now, he would prefer to speak rather abruptly;
but he nonetheless attempted
a respectful tone.
He addressed a foreign dignitary
after all.)
"It is not for me to say--"
""Isn't that absolutely right!"
she too heartily agreed with him.
And suddenly he felt uncomfortably responsible
for the fate
of a lot of acorns.

"Here we are," she said at last.
Where they stopped, a gnarled, dead tree stood
like a forest mausoleum.
Dead a very long time.
Dead like stone.
Gnarled like weathered stone.
Knotty holes scarred it deeply.
She pointed into one of these holes.
"Look there," she said,
as if she showed him
the inward parts of a treasure chest.

He peeked into the hole,
(so long dead it hardly lifted
even the faintest scent of spice.)
And there he saw a small twig
with a small leaf
growing on it.

"I ask you, how is it
that small branch drinks life
even from this tree's roots?
So I keep watching it, tending it.
In fact, it is why I'm in this place at all.
I've been given the task of sheltering it,
here in the desert."

"But what has that to do with war?" asked the man impatiently.
She looked at him in amazement.
"Why everything--" she said,
surprised he'd even asked.

She studied him thoughtfully,
as they retraced their steps
going back by the way they had come.
"I think the thing to consider next is not
how our activity here could teach you
this art of war."

He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"Though we fight gloriously, you can not see it.
You are blind, though I have shown you the balm that could open your eyes.
You are deaf, so I will give you the words that will open your ears."
Then she leaned over and breathed these words into his mind.
"Consider now the hardest question of all:
What is war?"

Continuing...Part 6

A trail is a sort of sign
but it may be just the sign of an animal's route;
A trace is a better sort of sign
but it maybe just the sign of an abandoned route.



So when a city-seeker finds a road,
with fences and ruts and potholes.
Then he shouts in triumph,
for he knows:
he is on his way.



Now, the warrior tracked along
a genuine road,
but no more did his mind wander fancy free. No.
He looked for signs of war craft.
Pugnacious in this quest,
he felt the days behind him spin out like galaxies,
so far had he come to find this place.



Thus, when he found a man with a long rod
stooping at the ground,
seemingly taking a measure,
he presumed the man to be marking a field
for planting.

Surely this one would be a good candidate
for land-related inquiry.
So he waited for the man to pause
in his reckoning.



Then the warrior asked,
"Good man, where might I find
a military leader in this place?
I have come to make myself
an apprentice
for a time,
as I would learn the art of war."



The man unfolded,
stretching slowly,
as one does who spends much time stooping.

"Why I am a general in this land's army.
Maybe I can help you on your quest."



The warrior-to-be frowned.
"What is a general doing
duck-walking along the ground
with a measuring rod in hand?"



"It is as you surmised. I am measuring."
(This statement made with remarkable ceremony.)



"But surely this is not a job for a high-ranking general?"
said the confused warrior-to-be.
"How could your commander in chief put you to such a meaningless task?"


"Meaningless?"
(And the voice rose as only an offended general's voice could.)
"Why this is the most important task of all!
If a measure is not taken periodically,
how can we know of our city's defenses?"



The statement made a modicum of sense to the man, so he pressed on.
"What is your measure then?"



"Why I have taken no measure at all, thank goodness!
You see, I look for things that show
a marking of territorial boundaries,
however insidious,
however secretive;
and if I find none then, well,
all is as it should be."

Seeing the would-be warrior's consternation,
indeed anticipating it,
the general continued:
"As long as we are free of the urge
to possess--
only then is our all
protected."

It almost made sense to the warrior-to-be;
but in the end
he wandered on down the road
looking for someone less cryptic
and he muttered a few comparisons to don Quixote
under his breath as he went.



Soon, he said to himself,
"Well and good. I have already got out of the way
the unavoidable encounters
the hillbillies and crackpots
native to every town and its outskirts,
no matter how civilized--
these are behind me now.

I can move on to more serious purposes without
their muddying the course."
And he forgot his intention
to avoid water allusions.


He followed the road until it was flanked by trees tall and statuesque.

In one of them, a man propped himself
leaning against one branch,
pruning another.

The warrior shaded his eyes,
looked up, and called.
"Good man, might I inquire where I could find someone skilled with a spear?"

(He'd decided to take a simpler tack.)

"Ticky-tacky tic-tac-toe," spoke a voice
(seemingly dis-embodied,
now that the warrior was directly below the tree)
from the rustling branches.
It was as if he read the warrior's mind.
Derogatorily.

"Well, you needn't call me tacky,
nor the player of a child's games--"
and the warrior felt
he came across quite astute
in this comment.

"Are all the people here so cryptic?"
he thought briefly, then aloud said,
"I have serious business."

"More than you realize," the voice threw down.

"I simply would like an answer to the question.
Do you know anyone skilled with a spear?"

A moment of silence, before:
"I am."

Then the person slid to the ground
all the while hugging the tree
with a rope belt.

Indeed, he looked strong and young
and capable.

But the interview was not quite finished.

"May I see your spear?"
(The spear tells much about the man who wields it.)

And the tree-climber held out his pruning hook.
"Here she be," he said in too-jovial a voice.

The warrior-to-be sighed.

"That is not a spear."

"Ask the tree. It will tell you otherwise."



So the warrior shook his head, yet again.
"Let us try this," he followed yet another tack.
"Do you know of anyone hereabouts
who can wield a sword?"

The quintessential warrior.

"Aye, you can find him at the smithy's today
I believe he's having it sharpened."

For this last bit, the warrior to be
very nearly hugged
the landscaper,
who then added boon to benefit
by telling the warrior where the smithy lived.



Now the warrior was not unfamiliar with
the ways of the civilized.
He knew what indicators proved that
civilization was established.

Not its population, no.
And not its purposeful diversity.
Rather, the opposite.
Where the superfluous abides,
there is civilization.

So he sought the signs
of things unnecessary.
But the economy of the place
even as it grew in complexity
was sheer poetry.

This, he might have recognized as
an outermost ripple of that which he came to find.
But he'd intentioned to put such fancies out of his mind.

So while he noticed
even admired
the aptness of the place,
it was to him
but an oddity
on his way to the blacksmith's shop.



Andthere it was:
A little white outbuilding, dark inside
where a smith planted his feet firmly
near the fire
and beat a metallic clanging rhythm.
A breezeway opened across to cool him
(as much as a smithy can be cooled. )
Black he was with soot,
while pounding at the vise
a strong metal
while another man
(his strong arms crossed over his chest)
stood watching.



The warrior to be approached the watchman.

"You study him like he works on your own metal.'

The man grinned and said, "He does."

"Are you the one who wields a sword
sharpening even now under the hand of this smithy?"

Now the waiting man turned his studious eyes
on the would-be-warrior
in the dim light of the shop.

"A sword," he mused. "I suppose."
The visitor turned his gaze on the metal being beaten.

"But that doesn't look like a sword,"
he said flatly.

"What do you suspect it might be if not a sword?"
(The man sounded amused.)

"If I didn't know better, I'd say it is a plow."

"Then you don't know better, as it is a plow."

The would-be-warrior spat
disgustedly on the muddy straw.
"I look for a general,
for a spear-thrower,
and a swordsman.
I'm told I find all three.
But in truth, I find none of these.

And I came such a long way
to learn the art of war.
Who can teach me now?

I suppose you'll tell me that sword-plow
slices the earth--"

"--but only where she is willing to be infected with seed,"
chuckled the man with the crossed, sweaty arms.

And the smithy kept hammering.

"Still, you are on a quest and I can respect that.
I must stay here while the smithy finishes
renewing my plow.

But if you will remember,
there is one who can help you find
what you're not yet knowing you seek.
The Queen."

The would-be warrior remembered the house on the hill.
He shook his head again, this time mumbling
about a Mad Hatter.

The plow-man ignored the mumbles.

"Along that lane, you'll find a pavilion.
She's often there
this time of day."



The would-be-warrior squinted
from his right eye,
at the plow-man and said,
"Of course, I can walk right up
to her.
The Queen.
Me.
A stranger."

The plowman slapped him on the back.
Another one, too jovial.
"Indeed! Liberty.
It is a law of the land that comes from the top straight down."

So the traveler left the mucky little shed
and he followed a lane past a pond and up a hill
where indeed there sat
a curtained pavilion.
Even the curtains mocked security.
Thin and of billowy fabric white.
Only their length bespoke their majesty,
for they were four building-storey's tall
if they were an inch.
So, though light and frothy, still
they hung heavy and regal,
from golden hooks barely visible
from the ground.
When he looked up to assess their height,
he saw an afternoon moon imprinted on the sky.
"Why are you there?" He asked her.
"What's more, I say
why is it ever your time to be out
during the day?
Is the sun ever so ambiguous?
I think not."
So he chided that faded moon.
"Washed-out," he called it.
Then he remembered his arrangement with himself.
"No more talking to the topography,
not even the topography of the sky."
But he couldn't silence the thought
that the moon was taking liberties, too.
And he wondered that the desert would allow it.

The Beloved and the Bride Awaken the Dawn

(part 5)
Not until this cleansing was accomplished did he come across
people.

Oh, but this was not remarkable to him.
A city called to catalogue such secret knowledge
as the art of war and conquest, such a place
would, no doubt, keep its people safely walled,
no doubt.

Only he saw no walls.
Instead, he saw hints of farms--
fences and pasturing animals,
mounds of hay seasoning
in the autumn sun--
He lifted his eyes and scanned the periphery,
where he expected to see the rise of a wall:
tall stone,
the shield of a city,
rising even above the tops of the trees.
Somewhere would be
a thing to make him pause,
breathless at its immensity,
deep defense,
substantial
even on first sight.
But what did he see?
A small farmhouse,
and a person,
most vulnerable of all:
a small boy,
(was he playing marbles in the dirt?)
while nearby his nurse hung fresh linens
out to dry.
(With not even a fence around the yard.)
The child sang nursery rhymes to himself as he played,
a sing-song script familiar to the man at first,
but turning odd,
which would remind him that
after all,
he was in an alien place.

"Rub a dub dub,
Three men in a tub--" sang the child.
Then strangeness:
"--a psychic, a claustrophobic--" the child looked up to glimpse the man,
never finishing his song,
nor his marble throw...

"Are you content, sir, or are you grasping?" the boy asked,
asked with the voice of a man grown,
asked with a voice of the director who would interview
for a role in the troupe
of the "Washtub-Community Players."

Content?
Abstractly, the man considered
he might indeed be a fitting choice
for a role;
but before he could answer,
the washer-woman called the child.

"Go on back to the house now,"
She said as she came from behind the flapping linens,
turning full to face the man.
He noted that even her head was wrapped in white linen,
like twin peaks crowning the brow of a medieval dame;
and her apron glowed,
a white sail on a windswept lawn full of sunlight.
But,
her nose was large and her skin
unremarkable.
She was a plain but clean, starched woman.

"Beg pardon, madame,
could I trouble you to tell me
where the wall 'round yonder city might be found?"

"Wall?" she asked,
suddenly more alert to her surroundings.
"Are we being in need of the wall?
And if ye knows there be a wall, how can ye not know Who keeps it?"

"Forgive me, I'm just a traveller.
I seek a wall for a landmark,
something that I might follow to the city's gates."
She looked at him,
her eyes now fully gone
inquisitive.

"It is said only enemies see the wall first off.
(And us what is under its protection, naturally.)
So here is the way of it--
the wall is a wall when we are in need of it.
If ye be friend, ye'll never see it.
So...be glad the wall is a blind spot
and the way, an opening to ye;
for no gate is available
if the wall be up."

Such talk struck him
as superstitious rambling.
He shook his head,
simple country folk...

But still, she helped.
Pointing, she advised:
"Ye'd want to follow that trail.
So it'll take ye along the river
until it meets the oxbow lake,
go down the oxbow
to where it drys to but a meander scar,
that scar goes along
on the land where the river once coursed.
Follow the scar.
And that's as good a way as any
to reach the city.
On a high hill is the house of the woman
ye be wanting to see."


If he'd had the patience to listen to her fully,
he'd have been surprised
by the measure of her discernment--
but before she spoke her last,
he'd already launched out
intently to follow the trail along the river.
When it took a sharp turn
he saw a lake
just a bit removed.
First clear and deep,
it soon fell marshy
until at last only a dry bed led his steps.
He walked that meander,
and (as was his way)
where a trail was easily followed,
he let his thoughts wander,
handling curiously the nature of things.

For instance:
How water moved over a day,
and then how it moved
over a million days.
But knowing that his long-sought answers
loomed with imminence,
this knowing broke
the long reverie in the place
where the water thoughts
and moon thoughts resided.
Now, he shook his head
and made some sensible self-talk.
Where is that warrior-to-be?
Am I not he?
When did I forget
the reason I'm here?
(seduced by bright pretties
like sun on ripples
and sweet freshness.)
Oh, it is good.
It is all necessary.
I do not dispute these things.
But me--
I am on a mission
of urgency.
Urgent men
write little poetry.

So, no more did he ruminate
on the past of the dry bed
or its future;
and he renewed his search for signs of a city.

So with near-magical timing,
straightaway
he saw a path that crossed the meander bed,
a path wide enough for a horse cart;
a path wide enough for a chariot.
So he followed that path up and out of a dry-gulch,
where he found the beginnings of
civilization.

The Beloved and the Bride Awaken the Dawn

(part 4)



One last night,
the warrior laid himself down.
One last night, outside.
A man alone, and beyond
the protective womb of a city wall.
One last night, but already different--
for even this night, he bedded in a changed world:
not on a pillow of stone,
on a bed of shifting grit-
but now on a mattress of soft moss.
Not under the desolate cry of the wind,
but under the compassing coo of a dove.

And more the change that bloomed in the morning,
for when he woke,
he woke to a welcome discomfort.

A long-lost foe of pleasant wakings,
friend of forest but not of man,
this friend to moss and trees
endowing them spicy aromatic,
made the man's grimy clothes and hair
all the more odious.
A friend likewise to the woodland creatures,
who while still morning-nestled in the cobwebs,
dressed them in fanciful pearls of light
(a reasonable pay for a night's boarding)
offered in those fleeting moments when it shared the world
with the light of dawn;
this friend of forest would in turn for the man
offer him little but deep-bone stiffness
in a sticky sort of way.
But the man did not grumble,
not even a murmur in his heart.

Dew.
So long absent as to be a thing forgotten.
Now,
once remembered,
once experienced,
real and near, after months of dry awakenings:
how had he ever thought it unpleasant?

And this new man
on this new morn,
found that which could so easily vanquish
the first-light
first-waking
comforts,
instead gently held his wonder and his peace;
daintily proving things past
and long absent from his company
were still utterly reliable
in their season.


Such meditations
rose up in him that morning
to a force so mighty
as could drive a geyser,
and with a similar allure
as what manna revisited might elicit.
So the man woke not only refreshed, but strong.

In time, he rose
and took the advice of the dew:
he sought a spring where he might bathe and drink.
Soon, he found a place where waters found their own wall of awakening,
a ceiling at the end of a cavernous trip,
that opened joyously into...
air!
And the man thought it a fitting place for his own immersing.
Careful not to touch that natural spigot
he nonetheless received of its gracious flow.
He lolled in the pooling waters where he floated.
He listened.
The sound of the waves lapping over him carried
a strangely layered humming.
And he considered the water might speak to him,
so naturally he spoke in return.
"We are kindred souls this morning," he cried.
Then he laughed at the sound of his own voice,
while the sunlight skipped along the water in his hair.

"The dew sent me to you, the current sent you to me.
So much anticipation.
What awaits us in this place, do you know?"
Then he drank from the spring--
a sweet foreign purity,
for though it was likewise water that had scoured
the innards of his water jug
lo those days in the desert, still
this stuff was entirely different.
And he laughed at himself
for talking to the water,
but not for listening.
No, that was serious.

In the end, he decided that
in this place,
to believe that profound communion
could indeed transpire
between man and the cool sweat of the earth,
why it was completely natural.

And still curious, the man rose to find his city of warriors.

The Beloved and the Bride Awaken the Dawn

(part 3)



So many things change

--most of them, gradually--

so many

so gradually

who notices?

Until change is remarkable.

But only to the observant.



And so this would-be warrior

hardly noticed

when death--as scraped bones, couched within

unstable sepulchers of sand--

gave way to life

in grass and trees.

Well into the change was he

before he looked up

from his weary

trudging feet

to see--

new terrain.

Looked up, for he saw strange shadows

--limbs of trees

and flying birds,

things living.

Strange shade,

for shadows had (long days)

been merely an attachment

to the high and frozen clouds.



Suddenly, he saw:

he walked a new world.

Scrubby, true.

But no longer exposed.

That wasted bare ground,

it was covered with life,

covered with meaning.



Alert now, he heard

(at last)

the welcome

that hummed

and fumed

and wafted

in this place.



So he noted, that his first welcome came

from the trees.

The cedar washed its aroma over him--

that tree whose song acknowledged restoration:

of the leper to his health

and to his home.

The warrior-to-be was cleansed.



His second welcome came

from the trees.

The acacia,

she reached--her thorny arms

her pods

all blackish--reached to embrace him.

"I carried Noah,"

she reminded.

And the warrior-to-be was rescued.



His third welcome came

from the trees.

As groves of myrtles whispered to him,

the scent of a stallion still in their branches,

whispered reminders of days long gone

that were nonetheless called to revival-destiny:

"Remember days festival,

when our branches were(are) pruned

for the making of boothes.

Remember."

And the warrior-to-be was inspired.


His fourth welcome came

from the trees.

Richest of all, the olive dripped,

so deep was the dignity of his welcome.

"Know,"

said he,

"my seed is within me,

and fruit I yield

after my own kind."

And the warrior-to-be was sated.



So together the fir and the pine and the box tree

cheered the moving man

whose stride no longer

fell weary.

"I sing for you, with the harps that

even now

await their forming from my branches,"

cried the fir.

"I sing for you,"

rustled the wind-kissed box tree,

her branches raised in perpetual praise.

At last, the pine cried out, stately

between the other two:

"We three, note us as you pass.

For it is we that proclaim

the sanctuary.

We that make the place of the feet

of the One

glorious."

And the warrior,

in passing, thought of feet.

How different a footprint in the forest

from a footprint in the sand.

Yet how similar.



So the warior overtook those hills and mountains
(deep stone servants)

called as intervention

in a vast fierce desert.

There, he remembered a rediscovering:

desert beauty locked

in the petals
of a rose;

so likewise now he reconsidered

diverse blessings mounding and resting
in fertile lands.



And as revisiting the desert had transformed his fear,

so revisiting the fertile lands transformed his pride.

And an awesome man was he,
though not yet a warrior, still...

a man of humble courage...

a man peculiar in any world.



But before he could pause long to reflect on his own transformation,

an old man stood beneath the box tree.

And he thought it the same old man who spoke days before

at the gate,

but figured that impossible.

"Seek ye the place where the desert holds the moon?"

spoke the wizened old mouth.

And the warrior gaped

just a little.

"Did I not just pass that country?"
he asked.



The old eyes twinkled.

"The pools are but a prophecy,
sent for thee.
Dost thou not wish to find its fulfillment?

She that lives upon that hill--"

and a long shaking finger pointed.

The warrior's eyes raked along

an invisible trajectory

to find a hill before a hill,

where a large white house of cedar wood

stood nestled before

a stand of evergreens.

Gabled in goodness,

floating on a crest of cool green,

a house he had never seen,

but still somehow had always hoped

existed.

"She lives there,"

the old man simply said.

It didn't quite fit.

And yet it did.



The warrior-to-be was curious.

The Beloved and the Bride Awaken

the dawn...
(part 2)

Deu 32:10
He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.


A funny thing: survival prayers.
If such a prayer be genuine,
the answering of it is hardly acknowledged
as divine intervention--
not right away.

Such was the case for the dying warrior-to-be.
When he found a tiny pool, his first thought was:
get low.
And with his face to the water
he lapped its life down his parched throat.
Then he rested, while waters diffused
throughout his flagging flesh,
He lapped again, and rested flat
his back cushioned against soft warm sands
as the air turned cool
and the the day gave way to night.

Then the moon herself
crept into his field of vision.

A standing man
regards the moon
from the position of one subservient,
scrutinizing her
from beneath his brows.
But
from this vantage point
flat on his back,
she is to his gaze,
as an equal.

The warrior considered her thus,
"What is your secret, O Moon?"
he asked.
But she had fallen silent.
You are so far up in the sky,
how is it you are nevertheless held in this place?
Was the old man doddering of mind
as well as body?"
Silently, she continued to creep
too slowly to measure with the eye,
but he knew...before long
she would hide again, ever waxing and waning
as was her way.
"Foolishness," he grunted
as he rolled over, turning his face with the intent
to drink again;
rolled away from her
and found her again.
Found her waiting in the water.
And like a key that finds its lock and turns
to throw open a door
that never wanted to be shut,
so the old man's secret was exposed.
The warrior's head shot up,
and his eyes became the eyes of a hawk.
Just a littledistance, he saw a glimmer.
And where at first the moon had been one,
soon she became many.
On pool after pool her gleam lighted,
like a butterfly
upon the still waters.
"In the place
where the desert holds the moon
you'll be near,"
said the old man.

Suddenly, to loll about
was ludicrous.
Though it was night
and the time of sleeping,
it was also the time of the moon glow.
So he shouldered his pack
and began to follow the pools,
pools in the desert
that led to the dawn.

The Beloved and the Bride Awaken

the dawn...

Once there was a man who had the dream
to be a mighty warrior;
and this man heard of a kingdom
strong and powerful.
It was distant--
some said only legendary--
but he thought:
I will seek out this land
for surely if it is real
I will learn to be
the master of my world;
I will learn this
from its inhabitants.
So I will not leave that place
until I have the secret
of that kingdom's great power.

Long were his travels
with many false turns,
restarts,
backtracking
and harsh climes.
But eventually, he came to a place
where the people no longer referred to this kingdom
as mythic.
"Keep to this road.
And when you find the place
where the desert holds the moon,
you will be very near,"
said an old sage sitting
in a city gate.
So the man turned squinted eyes toward the desert--
and he said--
"Many are the years since I've put foot to sand."
Indeed, he'd grown to manhood in a desert, but had left it
long ago
bent on a life in fertile lands that flowed
with all the good things that last
for a season;
but as the season changed,
so did his heart...
changed enough that he looked
across the rippling pulse
of land exposed
and he wondered
"Will I remember how to survive there?"
The old man, reading his mind, said,
"You have the eyes of a desert urchin.
You will be fine out there,
that is if you have the courage
to begin."

So the man set out across the mounds,
mounds that held no promise of life for the next day,
for the next year
--only a promise of shifting,
of movement under a hot wind--
and he reached into his most inward parts to find
survival gear.

Gradually, he discovered the old man was right.
Gradually, he discovered that the feeling he'd long-called
Distase
would claim again
its birth name:
Fear;
a name long buried in the shifting sands that were
within him;
fear of such a world as this--
fear locked in the grain of a boy grown,
locked because it was never threshed in manhood--
this fear
finally broken,
and the chaff blew away.

Slowly, signs of life sprang up
in his peripheral vision,
until one day he reached his hand
to stroke the petal of a desert rose
and as the tail of his turban snapped in the wind,
he looked to the horizon that was behind him
--a horizon no longer lifting even the hint
of that "safe haven" now long distant--
and he thought, "Where did I get the idea that
there was no beauty in this place?"

So the man acclimated,
and thereby proved many wrong who lounged
still in the lush lands.
Strangely, (as these things go)
to prove them wrong had fired his courage
until there was nothing left to prove
and courage was a thing better saved for
inward rather than outward feats.
Accomplishment evaporated like fleeting raindrops on the desert sand,
to be replaced by something better,
as he traded one mirage for another--
in that mysterious place where heat-visions are
what you make them.
And he wondered
if he would ever leave the desert again.
At last, he was ready to consider
the riddle.
For his quest was made no less mysterious
by the regaining of his desert footing:

"Keep to this road,
and when you find the place where
the desert holds the moon
you will be very near."
Until now, simply keeping his feet to that road
had been mysterious quest enough,
with shifting sands
twisting outcropping
buttes to skirt
as weathering had often turned an ancient path
impassable--
but always he had found the trail again;
And nowhere along it's way
did he find a place
that seemed to hold the moon.

Then a new clawing anxiety
surfaced--
not that of a dissatisfied boy,
but of a man with avid survival skills--
a knowing welled up
that even hidden water was growing scarce.
And soon, water became his all-consuming need.
Never mind fanciful quests...
Never mind reaching beyond the fears of youth...
Water was the goal.
Because none of the rest mattered
to dry bones on the desert floor.
Finally, he did something he hadn't done in years--
he prayed to the God he'd met in the desert
so long ago.
He asked for life.
And as he did,
a gentle breeze swirled across his face--
a breeze with a freshening quality to it.
He turned into that air:
did it not carry at least a hint
of moisture?
So at last, he left the road
all for the hope of water.

The Bride and the Beloved: What's in a Name?

Some might, in their dreams
see Armageddon.
But the Bride sees her Beloved,
in His anticipation.

From a distance she watched,
As the bronze hooves of His white horse
raise a cloud of sparkling dust.
She looked at her Beloved's blood-cape whipping in the wind
And at the gleaming white cloth draped over His thigh--
She saw where
He bore a monogram there:
King of Kings
And Lord of Lords.
Lettering of living gold
on cape and robe.
Who has ever heard of such a thing
as when the veins of the earth
come alive?
(But she knew, such living gold was even then
being fashioned for a wedding ring
the one He would give to her.)

She knew His other names for that day, such as
Faithful and True.
But like any young betrothed,
she was more fascinated
with what she didn't know
than with what she did know
about her Beloved.
For she knew
He bore a name
written
but that no one knew except Himself.

Slowly, she approached His horse
and when He saw her, He smiled.
"Have you prayed me Godspeed, My love?"
He shouted over the wind.
"I have indeed and prophesied Your testimony,"
she called back.
He nodded.
And she reached up and put a hand on his thigh, wondering.
What word writ here?
The horse's flanks quivered, as if it read her mind.
Don't look, the servant-beast seemed to think,
But she didn't receive the thought as a grace.
And suddenly she was anxious,
anxious to rip away the fine linen and see
the name inscribed there
just above His knee.
She knew of it,
but she did not know it.
"Should not a Bride know such a thing
as the name of her Husband?" she thought.
But then guiltily, she lifted her gaze
to find Him looking at her.
And He wore a strange smile on His face
a strange squint in His eyes.
"Look there if you would," He offers.
But she shakes her head, and pats that strong thigh decisively.
"No," she says. "I know what is written.
And what is written says I do not know this name.
Not now.
But in time, I hope to know it,
and without the need of the violent look.
In that day, I'll simply know it."
And He swooped her up,
"Then kiss me goodbye, and I'll go forth as
The Word of God.
That our time may be established."
And another of His latent names,
was activated.

Then she watched, as He rode away,
watched as His blood-robe kissed the sky
and all the energy of His kiss for her
was caught up in that red panel
whipping in the wind;
watched as a panorama of gleaming white robes
like a massive cloud,
fanned out in the wake of the blood-robe,
His troops,
(her troops)
forming
one vast cape
held in place by that ruby-red clasp
as if at the throat of
a giant-warrior--
a warrior to end all warriors.

"It isn't a secret, you know,'
said a voice near her ear.
She turned to see
the rich young ruler
from the days before her Beloved's glory;
that rich young ruler whose life
perpetuated sayings of camels and needles
throughout the ages.
He shook his head as if reading her thoughts
when he saw she recognized him,
"Some legacy, huh?" he chuckled.

But still he persisted.
"It isn't that the name is a secret
He hides nothing from you."

She tipped her head and studied him.
"I have thought that very thing strange," she said.
"That He who loves to such sacrificial degree
should hold this one thing back: a name."

The rich young ruler cast his gaze upon the diminishing ranks
as their power raced forth,
full strength across the cosmos
stirring stardust in places
where such power had long been forgotten.
"It isn't that He hides the name,
Nor that He withholds it,
offering Man
a singular unfairness
to mar the face of such a just love;
it is not a protective withholding
even from the worship of those
most diligently righteous;
And it is not an eternal mystery kept,
as judgment on those who know the most, but love the least;
although it rightly could be all these things."
He looked again at her,
and with fervor said,
"If anyone, then I should know of which I speak."

Fascinated, she asked,
"Then what is in this name?"
One word he said:
"Everything."
And he walked away.
And suddenly, she knew.

In her heart, once more, her Champion's love ran pure;
and she wished Him to hear her saying,
"I understand now.
I will not doubt again,
my Beloved."

Alone, she strolled, the strangest of Brides,
for she was not one bit distressed
that her love now rode off to war.
No, her mind ruminated with the one thought
that chased any fear away:
"Everything."

Like eyes that can only see a few--
maybe only a single--
facet of a diamond,
such was the nature of her power to comprehend
her Beloved.
Many flashes of color she might see:
the names of this day, and of days of yore:
Bread of Life,
Immanuel,
Light of the World,
Lamb of God,
Son of David, Man and God--
but this name
surpassed
encompassed
them all,
such that no mere human could ever see
the largeness
the majesty
the excellency
of it.
That He knew the name;
This was enough.
That His self-awareness lacked nothing;
This was enough.

Then as if to give the evidence of what was
and was to be,
(even her hopes realized)
yet another facet flashed
--even then--
and indeed it was one she had not seen before,
one like the scarlet thread of His cape,
shot through with the living gold,
a facet whose song sang something new for her
a song long hidden in the dust that waited,
waited for the stirring of this day:
"Strange and wonderful,"
sang the facet red and gold,
"that even as He
chooses you for His Bride,
even with your limited vision,
that He is content.
He does not expect you
to know Him as He knows Himself.
He simply loves you,
for your desire to know Him."

Thenas her countenance found its contentment,
and as her smile gew somewhat private,
she walked away from the settling dust.

Red and White Stones

I was going to make this a chapter in my story about the Bride and her Beloved, but doing a little research makes me see I need to stop and record what I found.

My love--you know how you wonder about what leads us. "Maybe you're just psychic, a precog--not particularly involved in something relational with a Creator-being, just wired to be different. maybe that's all our dreams are, psychic stuff." you say. And this statement comes as I give you evidence to support it: dreaming that a friend is in danger of losing her baby, dreaming I become one with the child's mind, being its voice as it say it wants to share life with the mother, and dreaming people/angels stop what they are doing to help in this cause. Then I learn a few days later that even as I dreamed this, that very friend of mine was indeed needing such a dream-prayer, as she was 9 weeks pregnant (which I knew) and was so severely dehydrated that she was hospitalized for three days (which I did not know until after the fact.) She's fine now, but how strange that such things continue to happen in my nocturnal life.
But as to whether such things are guided by a benevolent creator or not, you feel a nagging doubt, for where else do we see evidence of His benelovence in our lives? And I can certainly understand your having questions, not bitterness so much as legitimate questions. How can we know? I think there are other things to consider--ones that tie what I/we "see" in these dreams to Scripture and to life, and do indeed point to a personality that speaks their origins. For example--and I told you about this one yesterday while I was still in my questing stage for an answer to this little riddle: I dreamed of a red gem stone followed by a white gem stone as they "skipped" across my field of vision. This happened a little less than a year ago. I pondered it a while, as despite its brevity, it had that "super-dream" quality to it...but eventually without further revelation, I forgot it. Then yesterday, I did a load of laundry, and as I pulled the clothes out of the washer, at the bottom of the tank I found two little stones--the polished ones that are used in games like mancala, etc. One red one, one white one. The dream came again and hit me full force. Still, though I had no idea what their reference might be. I prayed, "God, what is the point in showing me these little stones, the red one and white one--the blue one, if there is to be no context for them?" (The blue one was another old dream that came back because it became real in my life. I dreamed this one about a year and a half ago(?) In it, I sat down at a new desk at work and as I cleared the drawers of stuff left behind by the previous owner, a blue stone, like a little blue pearl, was in a drawer--a stone that I realized mattered a lot, as it was the missing one from an antiqued-silver figurine I had. I got the figurine and sure enough, the stone fit exactly. Now I just needed glue to make it stay in place. This was the dream. Then last week, I received a different desk for this school year, as mine was accidentally appropriated for another room over the summer break. As I went through the drawers of my "new" desk, one that had belonged to my youngest son's teacher last year, and pulled out her stuff to return it all to her, guess what I found in the drawer? A blue stone...not a pearl exactly, but enough in keeping with the events of the dream and its stone that it all popped back into my mind.) What is the meaning behind the little stones? What are they telling me to do, to pray?

Then I sat down today and began to look for a reference for the next installment in the little poetic work I'm doing here regarding the Bride and the Christ, and as I read the reference I was seeking--seeking for an altogether different reason--I found Narnia, so to speak. I saw the red and white clothing and realized why these references, what I am to pray, and that these are not the things of random psychic flotsam in a cosmic consciousness, but are directed, and have been prearranged, preannounced, and now explained with meticulous care. The main thing that strikes me is that my own daily life again must recede into the realm of "that which doesn't matter as much as I think it does." For a Being awaits the work of prayer to be accomplished, waits to ride out on a white horse; and his robe is dipped in blood, and he is followed by an army robed in white. Like two small stones skipping out, on their way to being at the bottom of a profound cleansing of all other robes. In the language of the One who speaks to me, it is as loud as audible words to my physical self. I can question the significance of my own daily travails to the One who makes such pronouncements, but His existence is irrefutable to me. I pray that we make it through these trials to stand side by side in His strength again soon, my love! I pray that most diligently!
And I pray--with the words of a child and not a wise man--that the red and white stones do indeed go skipping on their way!

The prompt:
Revelation 19:10-14
"...Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."
Christ on a White Horse
11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.

The Beloved and the Bride

When the Bride's Sabbath was ended,
she took up her work
as a Bride of a King.

Sitting beside Him, she packed baskets,
filled with goodies,
each unique, but for one thing:
every basket held a small box:
a velvet-covered frame caked in gold filigree
encrusted with gems:
A rococo masterpiece.

Every basket, every time,
she would carefully open the box
and check for the pearl hidden inside.
Oh, some recipients would settle short of the mark;
and
enthralled by the be-jewelled box alone, they
would never think to open its latch.
For these,
the pearl's presence made no difference.
But others would wonder...
and these must find the answer to the mystery of their faith,
the treasure in the velvet depths.

Each time a basket was readied, she would hand it to a soul
awaited commissioning.
And she would speak a destination:
"Barnard's Loop," or
"the Trapezium Cluster..."
and with a smile, she would add the blessing:
"Find Life."
The her Husband would stretch forth His hand
and a flash of light would vanish the basket and its holder
from their presence.

Once, between baskets, she turned
to her Husband, her King,
and she laughed,
"I don't know why I put so much care into these baskets--
--if their carriers don't find You again,
these are just worthless trinkets they carry."

He smiled in return and took her hand,
playing her fingers like harp strings,
and said,
"Ah, but the ones who do find Me--
what amazing things they do with those trinkets."

So she continued in her bequeathing:
a hope here, a dream, a talent there.

Another pause,
and she observed:
"I never knew I'd love my work so much
in this place.
I never dreamed You'd make such responsibility to be
my allotment.."
"No? Did I not tell you I had other sheepfolds?
And in this place, many mansions?
Why should I not trust you with the workings of them?
You chose Whom you would serve; and
in dark adversity, you stood by your choice.
You chose well. And so here,
Love can be love openly,
in work and in rest."

She shook her head,
quoting ancient words,
"What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"
And so she regressed to a former work,
back into the womb of her former self,
pausing in the basket-filling to embrace this other work,
a pre-historic work by her fully-born standards:
she prayed for the world of the womb:

"O Ancient of Days,
O Exalted One,
may Man have such a heart as to never be disgruntled
should You choose to expand love yet again,
encompassing new creation.
May Man retain such knowledge and wisdom
that he would allow his home,
the new heaven and the new earth,
to serve as launchpad
for all things fashioned by
the One known as
Creator.

May Man never question the balance of the scales
those measuring his worth--
--as once before at such a climax
a great star fell,
lightning from a cosmic sky,
a sky that had not known gravity
had not known balanced scales
before that day.
Now,
at such a climax again,
let creation, primed and groomed,
sing Your praise
should Your Dayspring Love's light
diffuse evermore."

A Prayer for My Love...

O God,
My husband prayed for me on here, a prayer given some time ago. I re-read it; and even though he doesn't visit here much anymore, I take comfort every now and then from the words he said in prayer over me. Now he needs someone to pray over him. So I ask some of the same things for him that he asked for me--

He's tired. He needs rest, but he has no corner of time in which to take it. The "sweat of his brow" isn't even affording my husband the fruit that You told Adam he'd harvest--and that was in the context of being cursed! Little wonder Scott begins to doubt that You are real. As he puts it, "I see myself as a pretty resilient guy (and I'd agree) but I've taken so many hits lately that I'm not sure I can get back up after another one."

For example, the fact that even as he is trudging through life not feeling very well ever since the car wreck (and not getting a concrete diagnosis as to why he still doesn't feel "quite right") even now he has to deal with weird things like the IRS making some error that in essence split him into two people. Because we reported his income on our joint return two years ago, the IRS looked at this "other Scott" and classified him as a person who never paid his taxes on the income his work-place reported and therefore this Scott now owes the government $12,000 in taxes and penalties for not filing his income taxes. Who in the world does this sort of thing happen to? Is it common, or is it as fantastic as it seems to me to be? An hour's investment on the phone got him through to someone who could "reportedly" correct this strange split-personality the government tried to lay on his tax-life, but the stress of finding that letter in the mail and knowing that once again a potentially devastating loss lay at our doorstep, and that once again we were at the mercy of others--at most all he could really do was to explain the truth of our situation to the IRS agent and provide documentation of our filed and accepted tax forms and hope for the best. Our own empowerment to make justice prevail was non-existent.

So he is worn down. Hit after hit--from the expected to the wildly unlikely--are taking the grit right out of his heart for the future. If he is a tool for the testing of the integrity of others--even to the point of testing the IRS, good grief--then I pray You'd lay him down and let him rest. He's worn down to the nub with all this use in Your hand--by His own estimation. You claim to know us better than we know ourselves, but he is so battered right now that he is struggling to hang on to his belief that You are there at all, let alone that You care about his welfare. O God, love my husband! Love his life! Make him lie down in green pastures and restore his soul!
In the name of my Lord who died to set men free!
Amen

The Bubble and Isaiah 65

I dreamed once of the Bride of Christ walking, and she wore a beautiful gown. The gown had a lining-layer of peachy-gold over which swelled and popped myriads of different bubbles, all glowing warm colors as they rose. Scripture says that the Bride's gown is made of the righteous acts of the saints, so I began to think of each bubble as a righteous saint getting his/her share of space on the gown, or maybe as a particular facet of righteousness being made real by the various saints called to activity in its context. Interestingly, I found this article about our understanding of the formation of bubbles:

Scientists had thought bubbles form when jostling liquid molecules create pockets of low density in the liquid containing relatively fewer molecules than surrounding regions. Most of the time, other molecules will just rush in to fill in these air pockets. However, an exodus of molecules can also occur, causing the pockets, or bubbles, to grow.
David Corti, a chemical engineer at Purdue University in Indiana, compares the process to scaling a mountain. A pocket of air begins at the bottom of one side of the mountain (the liquid phase) and must climb the mountain and reach a destination on the other side (the vapor phase) to become a bubble.
"A small bubble needs to climb up one side of the mountain, cross through a reasonably well-defined mountain pass before it rolls down the other side of the mountain towards forming very large bubbles," Corti explained.
According to the conventional view, once the bubble makes it over the pass, it tumbles down the other side of the mountain like a snowball, picking up more molecules and growing bigger.
The new computer simulation suggests there "is no other side of the mountain," Corti told LiveScience. "Once it gets over the pass, we have found that the mountain just disappears, in a sense."

This is interesting to me in part because of the timing of my exposure to this information--the idea that at the end of the uphill climb comes an easier time than was once understood for anyone "riding a bubble." The question of "life after the hard mountain climb" has been tantamount for me of late, too. I blogged several entries lately lamenting things that need to change and don't as well as things that change disruptively. I've questioned how to understand the role of faith in a world where a God who "can" simply seems like He "won't." The mountain pass seems to go upward without end.

"Why, God?" I've asked several times. How do I hang on to the belief that after this life, peace will prevail? Sunday I stood in church and underneath the song I sang, I prayed for forgiveness because I sang about You as a mighty deliverer, but I felt no assurance of the truth of those words. Our relationship leaves me no doubts about the fact that You love me, so why the hang up in finding peace among the living in this world where You are after all the Overcomer? Why the constant barrage of "bad luck" happenings, year after year? What is the lesson I'm not learning? Strenuously, I asked, where do I hang my hope in this particular phase of life? Can I be sure I haven't missed the boat, leaving You to the re-teaching of the same lesson over and over again, the lesson that I'm too pig-headed to learn? The bubble-mountain swells, now looming large enough that to look to the horizon feels mighty precarious, but belief in what is on the other side of the mountain is still uncertain to all but the eyes of faith. Now this article says there may not be another "side" to that water-molecule mountain that the forming bubble traverses. And this scientific discovery seems to match the spiritual discovery You made available to my grasping soul.

I reasoned with You, like Job, pointing out that even as You send signs of a "blessed inheritance" being ours, nevertheless hardship prevails, delaying that inheritance to the point of its very existence being questionable. And if that inheritance is so important as to be announced to us, then what purpose lies behind all the trouble? "What do we need to figure out so You can relax this hedge of trials around us, God, and bring us out of the maze of this life and bless us? Must we die to receive this inheritance? Is that the end of our faith?" But again, all believers have that hope, and it hardly needs special revelation as to its coming. So what is this inheritance, and when will the peace and nearness of You no longer be compromised by the forces of this world? Is this so hard to accomplish? Are my prayers full of strength and effectiveness in all area but this one? Again, why?

And God was gracious and opened the eyes of my perception. This, too, I dreamed now that I think about it. White, translucent scales fell off my eyes at the touch of Your hand in a prayer-dream once, and I wondered at the time what I wasn't seeing, but I knew I should pray to see. It left me with not a little trepidation. Now the scales have certainly fallen off regarding this particular challenge to my faith. Funny how those dreams come back to mind when their associated prayers come real, because I dreamed that dream of blindness a year ago at least, and haven't thought of it since. But now, it revives, even as my vision is changed. God knew I needed His character clarified for the health of my faith, and He accommodated that need, even teaching me to ask for it ahead of time. Such is His way of working.

Mainly, the larger picture of my situation came to me as two randomly given scriptures came tumbling in on top of each other in my study-life. The first was this:

"God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but
to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may
give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for
the wind." Ecclesiastes 2:26.

The second reference encompassed practically the whole chapter of Isaiah 65, the chapter about the righteousness of God's judgment. God spoke to the future of those who prepared a table for "Fortune" and a drink offering for "Number, or Destiny" (both these names in quotes are the literal translations of the names of the pagan deities mentioned in this prophecy, but I can't help but think of the contemporary emphasis on prosperity in off-shoots of Christianity and the concurrent emphasis on gematra in off-shoots of Judaism, even I myself have found You speak to me in numbers, but not to the point that I deify the numbers as the prophets of my fortune, nor do I look to the wealth of this world as a sign of Your approval of me.) As to what was to come for those who are so inclined in their worship, Isaiah claims God says the following:

Therefore thus says the Lord God:

"Behold, My servants shall eat,
But you shall be hungry;
Behold, My
servants shall drink,
But you shall be thirsty;
Behold, My servants shall
rejoice,
But you shall be ashamed;
14
Behold, My servants shall sing for joy of heart,
But you shall cry for sorrow
of heart,
And wail for grief of spirit.
15
You shall leave your name as a curse to My chosen;
For the Lord God will slay
you,
And call His servants by another name;
16
So that he who blesses himself in the earth
Shall bless himself in the God of
truth;
And he who swears in the earth
Shall swear by the God of
truth;
Because the former troubles are forgotten,
And because they are
hidden from My eyes."

Both of these references remind me of the balance that my self-focus is primed to ignore. Strangely, seeing that my life is caught in this balance actually increases my significance (instead of lessening it as a surface glance might incline me to believe) to the God who will ultimately deliver me. So often You answer questions with questions, Jesus. The one You put to me: will my current level of faith accept the delay in the "blessing of me" as being a good thing for others in the sight of God? Eventually, there will be people living--and appear likely to be on earth even now--for whom it is true that when the "former troubles" are no more, it will be because those troubles are hidden from Your eyes, forgotten entirely. When Your divine balancing act occurs, the price I pay now will flip over to being a cost to those who have it easy, easy at the exclusion of You from their lives. I've known this tenet of the faith before, but never quite so deeply as it strikes me now.

And You ask me to look in that same chapter, where You say:

"As the new wine is found in the cluster,
And one says, 'Do not destroy
it,
For a blessing is in it,'
So will I do for My servants' sake,
That
I may not destroy them all.
9
I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
And from Judah an heir of My
mountains;
My elect shall inherit it,
And My servants shall dwell there."

You show me those grapes. You ask, "What do you have to say about My omniscience in sight of those grapes when they are put in the lap of your current life?" I want to say that if my patience, perseverance and willingness to wait for that inheritance in any way protect that new wine that hides in the cluster on the vine, then help me endure these days until You reap, help me remember Your purposes.

So once more I am reassured of Your power to prevail, and of the why behind Your hesitancy to set me/us free. Somehow, it seems, when I break free of the bondages of this life, in those days when Your elect and Your true servants receive what waits in Your hand, bigger change is in the offing than just an easement and a small blessing on our daily burdens. This time, it is going to be different.

So again, I will believe and anticipate that world You have in the palm of Your hand; the world You hold loosely, not yet scattering it at the feet of Your people, but nevertheless moving Your cupped hand nearer to their famished hearts, giving them a peek at what You hold there for them.

The Glorious New Creation
17
"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
And the former shall not
be remembered or come to mind.
18
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;
For behold, I create
Jerusalem as a rejoicing,
And her people a joy.
19
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
And joy in My people;
The voice of weeping
shall no longer be heard in her,
Nor the voice of crying.
20
"No more shall an infant from there live but a few days,
Nor an old man who
has not fulfilled his days;
For the child shall die one hundred years
old,
But the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed.
21
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
They shall plant vineyards and eat
their fruit.
22
They shall not build and another inhabit;
They shall not plant and another
eat;
For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people,
And My
elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23
They shall not labor in vain,
Nor bring forth children for trouble;
For
they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord,
And their offspring
with them.
24
"It shall come to pass
That before they call, I will answer;
And while
they are still speaking, I will hear.
25
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
The lion shall eat straw like the
ox,
And dust shall be the serpent's food.
They shall not hurt nor destroy
in all My holy mountain,"
Says the Lord.

I can hardly read those words without my vision going tear-blurred, God. If the picture You painted weren't so beautiful, it would be so much easier to wait.

Nevertheless, thanks be to God for the vision.

Change and Confession

Too much change in the air:
So much change that I could blog a dozen blogs on that one topic;
So much change I only really have time for one.

I could talk about my son going to college.
I could talk about going back to teaching after summer break.
I could talk about beginning a new "moonlighting" job selling wares at Farmer's Markets, town festivals and hopefully church bazaars. I'm sure I'll blog on this one as I wade deeper into a whole new community of people: the crafters. (smile)

Mostly today though, I need to focus on the one change that appears to be under the spotlight of my spiritual and relational life. My husband has joined a Christian rock band.

Several things strike me about this band:
--It is a ministry band, so it is something my husband has prayed to have in his life for a long time, and now it is being given to him. But...they play music that sounds like a cross between Van Halen and Heart (they have a gal singer.) Because of my own tastes, even in rock music, being quite far removed from this sound, I can't say I draw any affinity-inspiration from hearing them. (By no means am I saying this to be critical, for they are quite good at what they are doing. I'm just stating it as a necessary element in this string of self-reflection.)

--It is a band that has decided to practice in our basement. Because their sound resonates outside the house (particularly the bass and drum parts) I skulk out to the garden to water it of an evening, hoping I don't wind up being the one to take the lashing if any neighbors should decide "enough of this!" And I duck my head when I'm out front and people drive by, turning and staring with a startled look as they pass the house with their car windows open. My problem: I really don't want to get a "reprimand" from the community group. Having always been a quiet, cooperative and accommodating neighborhood member in the past, the thought of this change of personality in the community makes me unsettled, especially if I wind up being the front man should criticism be raised.
--I fear what it will ultimately demand of me personally. The band members are wonderful people, I really like all of them a lot. They are enthusiastic in what they are doing, but sometimes this frightens me in terms of what requirements will unconsciously be laid at my feet based on their priorities. How do I decide what boundary to set about my own time? Am I "supposed" to watch their kids and cook them meals as they practice since they have decided to practice at our house? So far, I've resisted this because of my own personal history. I've been drawn into that type of situation before, and I know how difficult it is to set a boundary after "services rendered" become the norm and the expectation. It is especially frightening because the future is a big unknown as they book gigs and look to grow now that they have a full complement of players/singers. Taxation without representation started a revolution once, and a fear of such a state of being for myself seems to be steeped in my own personal roots. One of the other band member's wives forgot to pick him up after rehearsal last night, so I'm wondering if I'm not the only one in the wings struggling with these feelings, but I can't speak to her feelings definitively.
--Paradoxically, that last point leads me to consider the one non-change that I think is troubling me the most. Minor points of change I could take if it were not for this one thing: the lack of power to positively affect the directional flow of the waters of my own life lo, these many years. This has been really tough for me. Now past years already cast in stone and stony shadows of the future loom as I once again experience things presented to me one way that then pan out to be something different. Somehow this taps some hissing volcano in me, because even in small things, this sense of encroachment prompts me to react badly, as it is all too familiar.

Am I alone when I notice that life seems like a constant uphill battle against manipulation? Is this a female thing? A middle-class Christian woman thing? And how do you fight it without looking like a hag, for none of it is conscious manipulation, it is just everyone pressing against the nearest wall as they seek to make their own priorities the ones that come out on top in a priority scramble. It's the American way, after all. But as has already been noted by contemporary sociologists, there's no vast frontier to launch our dreams across, in fact there's so little space left for "growing" in America now that for someone to grow literally and figuratively means someone else has to give up space. How do we take turns and play nice? And do I as a woman have a turn at all? No wonder the women's and civil rights revolutions happened. Or maybe that's putting the chicken before the egg. But waxing philosophical hardly solves my problem.

So how much space will I give up? For instance, how do I react when this space is invaded: I'm repeatedly told one thing, but then another happens...and not by forces unavoidable, but by some level of choice, and in a way that puts a negative turn on my own life. The first few times this sort of thing is accompanied by an apology, but when that proves too painful or maybe too obviously repetitive to justify, then come the times when I'm presented with the argument that the "change" from the original plan should be seen as justified because it is such a small change after all, or even worse, because I am supposedly mistaken in the way I remember things anyway. That last one makes me want to put a fist through a wall in frustration, because it feels like I am being told to swallow something dishonest, it feels like I no longer warrant the apology--and a fist through a wall seems the only way to make some space and get some oxygenated air. But maybe this is the very place where You, O God, are trying to teach me to quit trying to breathe. We all are called to die daily. Why am I surprised when I find I have trouble sucking in air? Why am I making it about me? So I come back to this:

It is important to remind myself that I am not intending to say all this not as complaining, but as confession. I can't believe that all these self-protective fears and whining are the right way to go.

My husband dreamed once that he and I were walking in a fun house; a spotlight over us helped us find our way. But as we went, that spotlight kept shrinking until in the end of the dream, the lighted floorspace was only large enough for the two of us to stand in. Currently, I feel a shrinking on my side of the light. And as I read today's devotions, I came across a pertinent quote: "You husband will never truly be yours until you have first given him back to God. He is yours only when you are willing to let him go wherever God calls him and do what God wants him to do." (Lisa Trotman) I thought I'd done this, but I forgot that in being one flesh with him, this "giving back" feels like cutting off a limb. Oh, God, as You call my love to follow the dream You planted in his heart, am I the one asked to pay the price? Am I the one called to cook everybody pizzas while he is down having fun flailing on the drums? (smile) Is his dream my drudgery, not according to his plan, but according to Yours? So do I wish for him to abandon his dream? Of course not. He's loving this, and I love it for him. But my question is whether I am allowed to dig my heels in and say I won't be a band flunky. I feel guilty because my reactivity seems inordinate. I'm reacting in part through what I've learned over the years as musicians have been everywhere in my world, and almost all of them assume that everything in life is peripheral to the nucleus of their music, and when it is music for You, well I feel ashamed for reflecting even this much on the topic of my "rights"...

You told me, God, that You were going to work on fear in me--that You were going to teach me to be less fearful. I must admit, this one hits right to the quick of me. Without Your strength, there's no way I can help but fear that if You decide to bless my husband's music ministry, it will consume every shred of freedom I have left after the havoc of these last few years. None of this is attitude-stuff to be proud of, so I can certainly understand why You'd roll up Your sleeves and go to work on me.
I read this morning in the Psalms.
"When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groanings all the day long,
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer."
This summer has indeed been a summer of drought. Every evening I have to water my garden. If I don't, forgetting to water for even one day, the plants begin to wilt. The garden has produced faithfully, and richly; but it has required much work, some cutting away, some sacrifice. Surely, down in the depths of me, these conditions mean something larger to my soul.

So what does the Psalmist do when he realizes his drought-ridden life?
"I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,'
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin."
In this Psalm, transgression means rebellion, sin means missing the mark, and iniquity means moral crookedness. God's responses are forgiveness, literally lifting; covering, literally hiding away or concealing; and not imputing, literally not counting.
My wrongs are not toward my husband and his band--although I may already be coming across as brittle about being drawn into the life they are building together, and for this I should apologize. My sin is in not believing that You can take my husband into this without at the same time making the "drought of summer" even worse in my own life. Right now, so much of what I come across seems to hammer home the idea that submission to him means I become invisible to You, woman lost yet working hard to support all the glory that You have intended for man. And I am not the originator of this thought. Many would say it is exactly the way You ordered life, but part of me feels like it is a "moral crookedness" that leads to the "rebellion" that is in my heart. Justified or not, my own brick of iniquity has its place in the wall of life's imperfection and needs confession.
Like the Psalmist, I give it to You, God.
I pray that You mold my heart into something that is able to rightfully support my husband without becoming a sad puppet of a human myself as I seek to accomplish this goal. I pray I still have a place in his life as he chases so many dreams that all seem to call out to him. To quote the Psalmist one more time:
Leads us both in the paths of righteousness, for Your name's sake.