...so go lyrics of an old hymn, if memory serves.
The more I fall in love with You, the more I wish I could climb up on that Cross with You, and not because I have some Messiah complex; but rather because You have planted a compassion in my heart that reaches back to You. I would climb up there to give You a focal point in that period when the Father had to turn away from You. My sinful past grants me a strange liberty to be with You when You were alone that way, to that very last moment of your human-body consciousness. And I entertained a prayer-visualization of as much...one with that strange way of ending, going outside my self-determined day-dreaming. I saw myself with You, beseeching You to keep me as a focal point much like a birthing coach would direct the woman in labor to focus on the picture or teddy bear or baby gown that she brought with her to the hospital. Focus on that thing that keeps her striving toward the goal rather than losing herself to the pain. I put myself, and all the Church with me, in that role. "Focus here!" I cried. And after an anguished roll of Your head to look up at me, You said, "It is finished," and gave up the ghost, as they say. I didn't anticipate Your last words finding a place in the dream-prayer.
So I looked in Scripture to see what happened on that Cross just before You said those famous words. In the book of John it says:
Jhn 19:26
When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!
Jhn 19:27
Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own [home].
Jhn 19:28
After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
Jhn 19:29
Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put [it] upon hyssop, and put [it] to his mouth.
Jhn 19:30
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
Up until that fateful moment, Your words continued to be for the benefit of others--but somehow to fulfill scripture in that last moment You spoke a personal need. It was that moment of Your death that my spirit felt drawn to join. "I thirst," You said. They lifted the sponge to You.
But then over time, I came to wonder whether such an offer of myself as that source of comfort in Your moment of need, was it too full of audacity? Would it offend that pinnacle moment of Your humanity to have a sinner attempt to bring You comfort in Your agony? Was it a distraction rather than a peace? Was it, beneath it all, just me seeking one more affirmation that I have profound and deep relationship with You? So I told You I would renounce the prayer-dream if it offends Thee.
But last night I received a phone call.
Our church is presenting a special service for the children on Easter morning. It has a pack of a dozen eggs for a theme. As each egg is "cracked open" an item falls out that is a tangible reminder of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection so the children might learn. The call came from the man directing the drama.
"I have one role not yet cast. I don't even have the script written for it," he said. "I kept going through my list of drama volunteers trying to find someone, and then your name popped into my mind, like you were the one who was supposed to take the discussion of this item.
Would you be the one to talk about the sponge?" he asked.
My prayer stands as originally made.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
And the gift goes on...another year
A year ago, I wrote of my youngest one under the above title. Today, I feel inclined to write of him again.
He never knew my mother as a flesh and bone woman, but he knows my mother in spirit. When fitting, I tell him the funny and engaging stories from her life, and in that way he comes to know her.
A few nights ago, we were "cuddling" on my bed just before his bedtime, something we do frequently. It is a thing precious to us both--an unadulterated joy to him, but one tinged bittersweet for me, as I know how short-lived these moments are, what with him now 6-years-old. On this particular night, we had one of those talks about his grandmother. As we talked, we went to that place visited by most mothers and young sons when those sons discover the chasm that exists between the living and the beloved dead. Those sons look to their mothers to build some sort of bridge across the chasm: and so we flew ahead to that moment when he will meet her, at the gates of heaven. For a child to consider such a thing is no great feat; to him it is perfectly natural.
As we were speaking of what it might be like--that day when we are all reunited for all eternity, I was sitting propped against my headboard and he was wallowing all around the bed. But he paused on hands and knees just beside me, lifted his head to look me deep in the eye and laughed an open, deep laugh, an utterly free laugh almost never heard but where it is ringing from the throat of a small child.
"I can't wait to die," he said gleefully, and then dropped down to put his head on my shoulder.
I wonder what life would be like if we could all still see heaven with the eyes of a child?
He never knew my mother as a flesh and bone woman, but he knows my mother in spirit. When fitting, I tell him the funny and engaging stories from her life, and in that way he comes to know her.
A few nights ago, we were "cuddling" on my bed just before his bedtime, something we do frequently. It is a thing precious to us both--an unadulterated joy to him, but one tinged bittersweet for me, as I know how short-lived these moments are, what with him now 6-years-old. On this particular night, we had one of those talks about his grandmother. As we talked, we went to that place visited by most mothers and young sons when those sons discover the chasm that exists between the living and the beloved dead. Those sons look to their mothers to build some sort of bridge across the chasm: and so we flew ahead to that moment when he will meet her, at the gates of heaven. For a child to consider such a thing is no great feat; to him it is perfectly natural.
As we were speaking of what it might be like--that day when we are all reunited for all eternity, I was sitting propped against my headboard and he was wallowing all around the bed. But he paused on hands and knees just beside me, lifted his head to look me deep in the eye and laughed an open, deep laugh, an utterly free laugh almost never heard but where it is ringing from the throat of a small child.
"I can't wait to die," he said gleefully, and then dropped down to put his head on my shoulder.
I wonder what life would be like if we could all still see heaven with the eyes of a child?
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Strange Pilgrimage...conclusion
How does a dream end that runs a course like this one has?
When I've seen this sort of ending in movies, I usually think them frustrating due to the lack of resolution...
So You and I entered yet another covenant--strange and unexpected, but full of a sort of spiritual logic that made sense to me and seemed designed to protect me. But at this point in the story, You seemed to pull away, and the darkness began to lift. Was itgrayness that invaded the dark? The dawn of a new light? A fog? None of these descriptors seemed quite right. Then I happened upon this idea: blankness, and that felt closer to right.
I entered a blank place that brought with it a sensation best described as relief. From the pest-ridden outer edge just this side of the safe garden, forward through the zone of sorrowful lost souls, to the deepest place, that which housed the un-remembering forsaken. All of the burdens unique to each phase of the pilgrimage--the accumulating soul-weight of these associations--it lifted; and a sense of rest took its place. But I found no vision here at the end of my journey, only a vague feeling of being finished with the worst of it. Anything meant to serve as an aftermath, well it waslost in that fog.
I waited, kept looking. Nothing. There was no more to the story.
But a few days later, I came across this verse:
To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:...
...He hath made every [thing] beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Eccl. 3 : 1, 11
No one sees from beginning to end. No one.
Any other ending would belie the whole experience.
I was satisfied.
When I've seen this sort of ending in movies, I usually think them frustrating due to the lack of resolution...
So You and I entered yet another covenant--strange and unexpected, but full of a sort of spiritual logic that made sense to me and seemed designed to protect me. But at this point in the story, You seemed to pull away, and the darkness began to lift. Was itgrayness that invaded the dark? The dawn of a new light? A fog? None of these descriptors seemed quite right. Then I happened upon this idea: blankness, and that felt closer to right.
I entered a blank place that brought with it a sensation best described as relief. From the pest-ridden outer edge just this side of the safe garden, forward through the zone of sorrowful lost souls, to the deepest place, that which housed the un-remembering forsaken. All of the burdens unique to each phase of the pilgrimage--the accumulating soul-weight of these associations--it lifted; and a sense of rest took its place. But I found no vision here at the end of my journey, only a vague feeling of being finished with the worst of it. Anything meant to serve as an aftermath, well it waslost in that fog.
I waited, kept looking. Nothing. There was no more to the story.
But a few days later, I came across this verse:
To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:...
...He hath made every [thing] beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Eccl. 3 : 1, 11
No one sees from beginning to end. No one.
Any other ending would belie the whole experience.
I was satisfied.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Strange Pilgrimage, part 4
All went pitch black as I went deeper. No vestiges of light on tragic faces. And here I felt compelled to remind You, "You've been talking in my ear all along, but here it is so dark I have no idea what is around me. You said You'd come after me. I'm thinking now would be a good time to show up--"
Immediately, something akin to the glow of a black light threw a purplish wash over me. In that light, I saw no "enviroment" per se but I did see things moving around me.
I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.
Such are the words You spoke to Isaiah, maybe when You took him to such a place as this one. For I sought You in a dark place, and my search for You was not vain even here. Were it not for You, I would nothave known how to comprehend these creatures that moved around me. That they had spirit I felt, but nothing else gave them any remaining semblance of humanity. The closest I could come to a physical description of them would be to say them undulating, oozing blobs of formless spirit matter. Here a tumor swelled up, there a patch of knobby flesh stretched and receded, and all of it rolling (for lack of a better word for their mode of perambulation) through the purple-lit space around me.
Many such beings came and went; and as I studied them, I realized they evoked a different feeling within me than those first souls had stirred. These beings simply existed now, and thus drew no aching ropes of compassion from my inward self. They wandered in and out of the purple spot light that surrounded me without the slightest awareness of me or the light. They simply oozed and wandered, making glugging sounds.
You let me observe them for a while; and then straight away, You voice was in that black-light above me, and You began to "declare things that are right."
"This is where I'll hide you when the time comes," You said.
"Here!?!" I responded, and in my mind there was nothing to recommend this place. I could almost see being placed among the ones that still bore some semblance of their former human life, but these woke little more than revulsion in me.
"Stop and think about it, " You said. "These beings are so far removed from their days brushing shoulders with grace-carriers that they have lost all their power of recognition for one such as you."
And the wisdom began slowly to dawn on me. "So they don't even remember what would serve for common spiritual history with me?"
"It was the last gift of grace they were able to receive," You said. "Here, they can't see you as a source of interaction. They don't really see anything as potential for interaction as you know it. All remembrance of anything that could serve as fabric for relationship--all that has decayed completely in them. So among them, you are as good as invisible."
"But how does this place hide me? Is this not 'his' territory?" I asked, my forehead still in a furrow.
"The Dragon?" You said, as You smiled a strange smile. "In the first place, he'd hardly believe I'd hide you here. In the second, he's done his job too well. He has so filled this place that it has swelled to vast dimensions; and since he is not so omniscient as he'd like to think, he could hardly afford to spend the time looking for you. Like a needle in a haystack you'd be, as they say. As a result, he'll resign himself to attempts on your life in the actual world, but that will prove futile as well. If I were to hide you in that earlier place of lost souls, he might stand a chance of finding you. Those beings might still be able to remember enough to recognize in you the glow that is fading in them. They might report such a strange sight. But not these. This deep, your life-light is unrecognizable. "
(And I remember again Isaiah's words about longing to remember God.)
We watched them mill around us a little while longer, and I realized that I was not afraid in this place. No suffocating panic as in the 'pestilence' place and and no overbearing ache as in the first realm of lost souls--none of these weighed on me in this place, only an alien strangeness that was heavy but not unbearable. To be so far removed from the peace that is graced to all in the form of a morning star, a summer breeze, a sun-glittered snow--the utter absence of such peace was heavy, but tolerable in the context that I was but on pilgrimage.
When You spoke once again, You referred to a dream You gave me once long ago, a dream where I "saw" Lucifer and was tempted to feel sympathy for him; for I could ascertain, although not quite spiritually "see" the loss of his former glory, a loss so obvious within his now-broken framework. Where once he was blinding to gaze upon, the ultimate, creative masterpiece channel for the light that is God: to see him was to see brilliant glowing prisms of light shooting through him and beyond across the highest heavens; but, now there remained nothing than a sticky brown death mucking his surface, disallowing all passage of light through his being. The huge arcs that were once his thundering, crackling spirit wheels were now nothing but broken shells. When I had that dream long ago, You told me that You would not show me plainly his former glory; for were I to see the full range of that beauty lost, I would be all the more tempted to feel sympathy, and it was not the time for sympathy toward him. Now as we gazed on these creatures, You brought back to mind that natural pull toward sympathy wired into still-living mankind...I wondered what consitituted the lake of fire.
"You see now, why these 'lost' ones are not to be regarded with pity, not in the sense of the reconciliation still available to the living. Their choice of path, choice of allegiance, choice of indulgence, however you wish to perceive and define that choice--it has taken them to an existence that can no longer even desire or remember what is lost. For them to even remember would be an indication that the God they resolutely rejected is still imposing His presence upon them, for He is the author of the law that condemns and therefore points to Him. To be able to perceive the concept of having an existence of value implies things like growth, hope, and respect for what is good--to have such perception would put a little bit of God still in them."
And even though You didn't say it, I wondered about that last "sympathy" for the devil that You restrained me from feeling in that former dream. I wondered if the same grace that allowed these to 'forget' what they abandoned would ultimately reach even to him...making him no longer cognizant. Could he lose the "feel" not only of his current adversarial relationship with You, the Intercessor, but also with the just Father, in whose presence he has so long stood, accusing so many--from Job in ancient days to that firebrand who is yet to be? I remembered the verse about one who looks in the mirror but immediately forgets his reflection when he looks away. God has been just such a mirror for him--showing Lucifer who he is, who he was--but when the last reflection of all former things is removed, will even Lucifer forget? It is a wisdom beyond my capacity to perceive. But I think on this:
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Would the grace of this "failure to remember" reach even into the realm of its negative image? Extend even to those who rejected the offer to inhabit these new heavens and new earth? But these things, I simply pondered in my heart. And again, Isaiah whispered in my ear. With but a few words, he recounted my entire pilgrimage, from the time I found myself outside those iron gates that shielded me to a place that--strangely--offered even safer shielding, safer because You'd been there before me, and knew the path I should take:
Isa 45:2
I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
Isa 45:3
And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call [thee] by thy name, [am] the God of Israel.
They are words that have served as a protective glaze over many a life...and now over mine, too.
One more day and the story will all be told. For every pilgrimage must reach its end, and every pilgrim must leave the foreign land where he travels or else make himself one with the natives.
Immediately, something akin to the glow of a black light threw a purplish wash over me. In that light, I saw no "enviroment" per se but I did see things moving around me.
I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.
Such are the words You spoke to Isaiah, maybe when You took him to such a place as this one. For I sought You in a dark place, and my search for You was not vain even here. Were it not for You, I would nothave known how to comprehend these creatures that moved around me. That they had spirit I felt, but nothing else gave them any remaining semblance of humanity. The closest I could come to a physical description of them would be to say them undulating, oozing blobs of formless spirit matter. Here a tumor swelled up, there a patch of knobby flesh stretched and receded, and all of it rolling (for lack of a better word for their mode of perambulation) through the purple-lit space around me.
Many such beings came and went; and as I studied them, I realized they evoked a different feeling within me than those first souls had stirred. These beings simply existed now, and thus drew no aching ropes of compassion from my inward self. They wandered in and out of the purple spot light that surrounded me without the slightest awareness of me or the light. They simply oozed and wandered, making glugging sounds.
You let me observe them for a while; and then straight away, You voice was in that black-light above me, and You began to "declare things that are right."
"This is where I'll hide you when the time comes," You said.
"Here!?!" I responded, and in my mind there was nothing to recommend this place. I could almost see being placed among the ones that still bore some semblance of their former human life, but these woke little more than revulsion in me.
"Stop and think about it, " You said. "These beings are so far removed from their days brushing shoulders with grace-carriers that they have lost all their power of recognition for one such as you."
And the wisdom began slowly to dawn on me. "So they don't even remember what would serve for common spiritual history with me?"
"It was the last gift of grace they were able to receive," You said. "Here, they can't see you as a source of interaction. They don't really see anything as potential for interaction as you know it. All remembrance of anything that could serve as fabric for relationship--all that has decayed completely in them. So among them, you are as good as invisible."
"But how does this place hide me? Is this not 'his' territory?" I asked, my forehead still in a furrow.
"The Dragon?" You said, as You smiled a strange smile. "In the first place, he'd hardly believe I'd hide you here. In the second, he's done his job too well. He has so filled this place that it has swelled to vast dimensions; and since he is not so omniscient as he'd like to think, he could hardly afford to spend the time looking for you. Like a needle in a haystack you'd be, as they say. As a result, he'll resign himself to attempts on your life in the actual world, but that will prove futile as well. If I were to hide you in that earlier place of lost souls, he might stand a chance of finding you. Those beings might still be able to remember enough to recognize in you the glow that is fading in them. They might report such a strange sight. But not these. This deep, your life-light is unrecognizable. "
(And I remember again Isaiah's words about longing to remember God.)
We watched them mill around us a little while longer, and I realized that I was not afraid in this place. No suffocating panic as in the 'pestilence' place and and no overbearing ache as in the first realm of lost souls--none of these weighed on me in this place, only an alien strangeness that was heavy but not unbearable. To be so far removed from the peace that is graced to all in the form of a morning star, a summer breeze, a sun-glittered snow--the utter absence of such peace was heavy, but tolerable in the context that I was but on pilgrimage.
When You spoke once again, You referred to a dream You gave me once long ago, a dream where I "saw" Lucifer and was tempted to feel sympathy for him; for I could ascertain, although not quite spiritually "see" the loss of his former glory, a loss so obvious within his now-broken framework. Where once he was blinding to gaze upon, the ultimate, creative masterpiece channel for the light that is God: to see him was to see brilliant glowing prisms of light shooting through him and beyond across the highest heavens; but, now there remained nothing than a sticky brown death mucking his surface, disallowing all passage of light through his being. The huge arcs that were once his thundering, crackling spirit wheels were now nothing but broken shells. When I had that dream long ago, You told me that You would not show me plainly his former glory; for were I to see the full range of that beauty lost, I would be all the more tempted to feel sympathy, and it was not the time for sympathy toward him. Now as we gazed on these creatures, You brought back to mind that natural pull toward sympathy wired into still-living mankind...I wondered what consitituted the lake of fire.
"You see now, why these 'lost' ones are not to be regarded with pity, not in the sense of the reconciliation still available to the living. Their choice of path, choice of allegiance, choice of indulgence, however you wish to perceive and define that choice--it has taken them to an existence that can no longer even desire or remember what is lost. For them to even remember would be an indication that the God they resolutely rejected is still imposing His presence upon them, for He is the author of the law that condemns and therefore points to Him. To be able to perceive the concept of having an existence of value implies things like growth, hope, and respect for what is good--to have such perception would put a little bit of God still in them."
And even though You didn't say it, I wondered about that last "sympathy" for the devil that You restrained me from feeling in that former dream. I wondered if the same grace that allowed these to 'forget' what they abandoned would ultimately reach even to him...making him no longer cognizant. Could he lose the "feel" not only of his current adversarial relationship with You, the Intercessor, but also with the just Father, in whose presence he has so long stood, accusing so many--from Job in ancient days to that firebrand who is yet to be? I remembered the verse about one who looks in the mirror but immediately forgets his reflection when he looks away. God has been just such a mirror for him--showing Lucifer who he is, who he was--but when the last reflection of all former things is removed, will even Lucifer forget? It is a wisdom beyond my capacity to perceive. But I think on this:
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Would the grace of this "failure to remember" reach even into the realm of its negative image? Extend even to those who rejected the offer to inhabit these new heavens and new earth? But these things, I simply pondered in my heart. And again, Isaiah whispered in my ear. With but a few words, he recounted my entire pilgrimage, from the time I found myself outside those iron gates that shielded me to a place that--strangely--offered even safer shielding, safer because You'd been there before me, and knew the path I should take:
Isa 45:2
I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
Isa 45:3
And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call [thee] by thy name, [am] the God of Israel.
They are words that have served as a protective glaze over many a life...and now over mine, too.
One more day and the story will all be told. For every pilgrimage must reach its end, and every pilgrim must leave the foreign land where he travels or else make himself one with the natives.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Strange Pilgrimage, part 3
How does one describe a venture into that realm of darkness where one encounters newly lost souls, the ones freshly aware of their state of being?
An atmosphere of anguish?
A constant throb of loneliness?
A desperate grasp to clutch and not forget that thing too fast slipping from their memory: hope?
In fact, much of what they knew was fleeting, for with the loss of God they had lost the well-spring of all wisdom, humor, foresight...
The only thing they still seemed to clasp firmly was the lingering awareness that all was not well with them, never would be well again...
They were faintly visible, like glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on a child's wall or pictures woven into his little t-shirt--the glow that offers a last remnant of a previous exposure to light. And as they drifted near me, they reached for me, but not like creatures in a horror film would do. Not with a zombie's mindlessness nor a demon's viciousness; more with the grasp a drowning swimmer tries to put on the confident strokes of a strong one. But the sudden panic that struck me at the sight of their ghostly hands soon faded; for gone was any internal force once bestowed by grace for the benefit of direction and guidance. And so moaning, they swiftly forgot why they craved the nearness of me, and they drifted away. In fact, like a desert of wind-blown tumbleweed they moved with a randomness that told the depths of their loss: no remaining sense of purpose and no valuable memory.
Yet having these tragic creatures see me at all made these verses wash over me in deeper hue as I happen across them a few days later:
Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish, and they will be driven into darkness. Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. Isaiah 8:22-9:2
But no sooner had I found my footing in this place when the unction came: go deeper.
An atmosphere of anguish?
A constant throb of loneliness?
A desperate grasp to clutch and not forget that thing too fast slipping from their memory: hope?
In fact, much of what they knew was fleeting, for with the loss of God they had lost the well-spring of all wisdom, humor, foresight...
The only thing they still seemed to clasp firmly was the lingering awareness that all was not well with them, never would be well again...
They were faintly visible, like glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on a child's wall or pictures woven into his little t-shirt--the glow that offers a last remnant of a previous exposure to light. And as they drifted near me, they reached for me, but not like creatures in a horror film would do. Not with a zombie's mindlessness nor a demon's viciousness; more with the grasp a drowning swimmer tries to put on the confident strokes of a strong one. But the sudden panic that struck me at the sight of their ghostly hands soon faded; for gone was any internal force once bestowed by grace for the benefit of direction and guidance. And so moaning, they swiftly forgot why they craved the nearness of me, and they drifted away. In fact, like a desert of wind-blown tumbleweed they moved with a randomness that told the depths of their loss: no remaining sense of purpose and no valuable memory.
Yet having these tragic creatures see me at all made these verses wash over me in deeper hue as I happen across them a few days later:
Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish, and they will be driven into darkness. Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. Isaiah 8:22-9:2
But no sooner had I found my footing in this place when the unction came: go deeper.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Strange Pilgrimage...part 2
To go into darkness because of lust shows one driven by instinct.
To go into darkness because of rage shows one driven by pride.
To go into darkness to seek an exchange of the real light for the spiritual strange-light shows one tempted to hyper-calculation in the cosmic game, but..
To go into the darkness on Commissioned pilgrimage? What does that show?
"You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."
These words echo in my mind as I wander into this dark unknown.
These words, too, become more real:
"The desire of our soul is for Your name and for the remembrance of You."
I am struck by Your timing. Months we spent, feeling stalled in a fiery pit of affliction. Then in a flash, we came to understand it.
Only a few days have passed since we came to see, and then found in Scripture, the words that explain the course of this fire You sent. And that fire has been like the electric leap from one nerve cell to another in the brain-- and it has been like these waters of affliction You poured on us served as a conductor for that electric leap, taking us to the place that defines Your purpose.
Only a few days have we understood that we might stand in the position of the just as You demonstrate this truth:
"O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just.
Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for you;
...With my soul I have desired You in the night,
Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early;
For when Your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness."
And it is an honor to be so placed by Your hand, but on the heels of the discovery of this positioning comes the call to move on, the push to send us to a new place.
So I walk into the dark, and the dark feels familiar in bad ways; like dark felt in the days before You knew me for purposes of Your own, before I could stand naked with the just and be unashamed. First, in this dark, I meet up with a pestilence...flies, locusts? Hard to tell in the pitch black. But they buzz around me, prompting me to thrash and bat at them. And I wonder, do they represent the days I am coming out of even now? The days just after time spent so palpably real in Your garden? But You are already speaking into my mind the reasons why I must go even deeper into this darkness:
"Let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness."
I go away from Your garden for two reasons. The first, that I might serve as example of the results of grace. In this task, I follow in the footsteps of my Savior wherever He might go, even to the "depths of Sheol." Where He went to proclaim Himself the author of all righteousness that springs from faith in Him, I now follow to proclaim Him finisher of the same. But I know from the visions spoken by prophets in days long gone, this "evidence" will not bear fruit, even in the words echoing from Isaiah's text above. Still, the law and the testimony must be fulfilled, so I march on. And the flying pests begin to dissipate.
I go forward for two reasons. The second, that I have a place in the wilderness to find, a place prepared for me by God. So on a personal level, my pilgrimage relates to the finding of this hiding place. I must know--in God's world of visions at least--where that place is, must know it in my belly before I ever walk into it in this life's actualities. And while in this dream-prayer my pilgrimage is played on the symbolic and spiritual plane (and therefore appears quite fantastic compared to the way it will play in actuality) still the synaptic leap between the two will once again be obvious to me when the actual occurs; so for wisdom's sake, I must go on. And so I leave the land of the flying pests behind me.
The next layer of darkness opens before me; I move into a land made to house the lost souls of men...
And here You remind me of the words You spoke hundreds of years before You were born, and again now thousands of years after You died:
"I the Lord, am the first; and with the last I am He."
To go into darkness because of rage shows one driven by pride.
To go into darkness to seek an exchange of the real light for the spiritual strange-light shows one tempted to hyper-calculation in the cosmic game, but..
To go into the darkness on Commissioned pilgrimage? What does that show?
"You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."
These words echo in my mind as I wander into this dark unknown.
These words, too, become more real:
"The desire of our soul is for Your name and for the remembrance of You."
I am struck by Your timing. Months we spent, feeling stalled in a fiery pit of affliction. Then in a flash, we came to understand it.
Only a few days have passed since we came to see, and then found in Scripture, the words that explain the course of this fire You sent. And that fire has been like the electric leap from one nerve cell to another in the brain-- and it has been like these waters of affliction You poured on us served as a conductor for that electric leap, taking us to the place that defines Your purpose.
Only a few days have we understood that we might stand in the position of the just as You demonstrate this truth:
"O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just.
Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for you;
...With my soul I have desired You in the night,
Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early;
For when Your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness."
And it is an honor to be so placed by Your hand, but on the heels of the discovery of this positioning comes the call to move on, the push to send us to a new place.
So I walk into the dark, and the dark feels familiar in bad ways; like dark felt in the days before You knew me for purposes of Your own, before I could stand naked with the just and be unashamed. First, in this dark, I meet up with a pestilence...flies, locusts? Hard to tell in the pitch black. But they buzz around me, prompting me to thrash and bat at them. And I wonder, do they represent the days I am coming out of even now? The days just after time spent so palpably real in Your garden? But You are already speaking into my mind the reasons why I must go even deeper into this darkness:
"Let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness."
I go away from Your garden for two reasons. The first, that I might serve as example of the results of grace. In this task, I follow in the footsteps of my Savior wherever He might go, even to the "depths of Sheol." Where He went to proclaim Himself the author of all righteousness that springs from faith in Him, I now follow to proclaim Him finisher of the same. But I know from the visions spoken by prophets in days long gone, this "evidence" will not bear fruit, even in the words echoing from Isaiah's text above. Still, the law and the testimony must be fulfilled, so I march on. And the flying pests begin to dissipate.
I go forward for two reasons. The second, that I have a place in the wilderness to find, a place prepared for me by God. So on a personal level, my pilgrimage relates to the finding of this hiding place. I must know--in God's world of visions at least--where that place is, must know it in my belly before I ever walk into it in this life's actualities. And while in this dream-prayer my pilgrimage is played on the symbolic and spiritual plane (and therefore appears quite fantastic compared to the way it will play in actuality) still the synaptic leap between the two will once again be obvious to me when the actual occurs; so for wisdom's sake, I must go on. And so I leave the land of the flying pests behind me.
The next layer of darkness opens before me; I move into a land made to house the lost souls of men...
And here You remind me of the words You spoke hundreds of years before You were born, and again now thousands of years after You died:
"I the Lord, am the first; and with the last I am He."
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Strange Pilgrimage...part 1
...taken in that expansive place between sleep and waking, where consciousness is questionable.
Sometimes, I go to see if Our garden is open. Sometimes, it is only open to memory, like a peek into a photo album. Other times, it is more "real" than that. When I went the other night, I went while still awake enough to direct my own thoughts, but asleep enough to accept whatever came even without my direction. Right away, I was surprised. I could tell it was going to be a guided prayer-session in which my imagination would be employed as in a dream, but in which my still-conscious will would also be engaged. I could tell because for the first time, I found myself outside the gate. I was outside for the first time, that is, since the dream when I ran instinctively in through that gate (at that time under angelic guard) in order to escape dog-like creatures that wanted to destroy me. It strikes me as silly when I type it now, but it was all so symbolic, and had its profound connections with Scripture. So the surprise of being unintentionally (on my part at least) outside the gate led me to think I was dreaming; but then a question was put to my will, and I knew myself to still be awake, for my conscious will was required to make answer. As I stood with my back against that gate, I felt You just behind me, and Your warm breath soothed the back of my neck, but Your words did not soothe as You told me to walk out into the darkness. I clung to the gate with that sense of security a child finds in her mother's skirts, but You reassured me. "I'll come after you. Trust me."
So I stepped away from the gate and began to walk. Heavy on me was the sense that I was leaving the place that grounded me, moving more and more away from the feel of it, and into an unknown darkness that was not home to me.
Sometimes, I go to see if Our garden is open. Sometimes, it is only open to memory, like a peek into a photo album. Other times, it is more "real" than that. When I went the other night, I went while still awake enough to direct my own thoughts, but asleep enough to accept whatever came even without my direction. Right away, I was surprised. I could tell it was going to be a guided prayer-session in which my imagination would be employed as in a dream, but in which my still-conscious will would also be engaged. I could tell because for the first time, I found myself outside the gate. I was outside for the first time, that is, since the dream when I ran instinctively in through that gate (at that time under angelic guard) in order to escape dog-like creatures that wanted to destroy me. It strikes me as silly when I type it now, but it was all so symbolic, and had its profound connections with Scripture. So the surprise of being unintentionally (on my part at least) outside the gate led me to think I was dreaming; but then a question was put to my will, and I knew myself to still be awake, for my conscious will was required to make answer. As I stood with my back against that gate, I felt You just behind me, and Your warm breath soothed the back of my neck, but Your words did not soothe as You told me to walk out into the darkness. I clung to the gate with that sense of security a child finds in her mother's skirts, but You reassured me. "I'll come after you. Trust me."
So I stepped away from the gate and began to walk. Heavy on me was the sense that I was leaving the place that grounded me, moving more and more away from the feel of it, and into an unknown darkness that was not home to me.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Building Forward Momentum...
While driving on the freeway to meet a friend for dinner Friday night, I was passed by two SUV's. They were obviously close travel companions as they stayed near each other and both bore Virginia plates. The larger front one was black, the smaller rear one white.
They were clean, bright and un-embellished but for one thing: the black SUV bore one window sticker, centered in its back window and visible to all who might follow it. There--in a clean, bright white that connected it to the partner SUV--was a simple message: FORGIVEN.
No picture, not even the clever turn of a phrase to give the idea panache.
Just one word, because when traffic moves, there's no time to read much on a window sticker, and besides...
That one word said all that needed saying.
And although it may sound a little trite, that moment spoke of many others that brighten my countenance.
They were clean, bright and un-embellished but for one thing: the black SUV bore one window sticker, centered in its back window and visible to all who might follow it. There--in a clean, bright white that connected it to the partner SUV--was a simple message: FORGIVEN.
No picture, not even the clever turn of a phrase to give the idea panache.
Just one word, because when traffic moves, there's no time to read much on a window sticker, and besides...
That one word said all that needed saying.
And although it may sound a little trite, that moment spoke of many others that brighten my countenance.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Another Day in Pleasantville...
5:30 am: Eldest son's computer alarm goes off loudly and wakes everyone but him.
6:00 am: Eldest son leaves for work. After work, he is heading to his future university where he will have a percussion lesson prior to a scholarship audition. Said college is a good 4 hours away.
6:10 am: Same son returns home. "Somewhere around Walmart, the brakes made this really loud pop and don't seem to be working any more." Sudden changes are made in the day's routine as transportation is rearranged so that he can take the family van.
6:30 am: Wake youngest son, who upon rising collapses into the floor in tears. His legs hurt, he says. Dad digs back into that year and a half of PT grad school from his past and checks the little guy out. Determines the three days of relatively high fever have probably left him a little dehydrated. Start pushing fluids and making him walk around to loosen up. Looks like a weepy Frankenstein for a while.
6:45 am: Check the email. Discover one came from the health insurance company with whom we'd sought temporary coverage. Our petition for coverage was denied. (Who could blame them?) So back to square one with trying to get health insurance before dad's starts in May.
7:00 am: Decide the youngest is still not well enough for a day of school, but mom must go to school for end-of-the-term business and dad must go to work as dad's boss arranged for dad to give a presentation to a large group of people. So--youngest will camp out in mom's classroom for the day, coloring and playing video games while classes come and go.
7:10 am: Whole entourage pile into dad's car, which is a perfect size for him, his briefcase and supplies--but becomes rather cramped when two more backpacks, another briefcase, three more people and a portable TV and video game system are added to the cargo.
7:45 am: Eldest son has taken off with mom's school keys. Mom borrows the secretary's master key. Fortunately only needs to do this once during the day.
8:15 am: Mom discovers she left the children's ibuprofen at home. Hoping the youngest one's fever does not return. Goes back to the secretary to see if any stock of generic children's ibuprofen is kept in the cabinets.
9:05 am: Most of mom's classes run smoothly. Kids are amenable to the little guy "visiting" for the day. Dad's presentation goes well, too.
2:00 pm: Mom's school day does not finish as peachy as it started. One kid skips out on class. Begged a bathroom run. Took a long time...finish reading War and Peace type long time. Then tells her that he had something he needed to take care of in the office and this delayed him. But secretary's story was that when the boy came to the office, he said he'd been sent there to see if he could help out at all. Oops. Got caught.
2:20 pm: Mom learns from yesterday's substitute that several kids acted up in computer class. Mom walks into the office. "I need oh--about a ream of discipline referral sheets."
3:35 pm: Dad picks up the crew.
4:10 pm: Driving home, whole family decides to do their once-per-paycheck frivolous spending. The day certainly qualifies for it. They go out for Chinese at a wonderful buffet.
5:05 pm: Too bad Dad didn't realize fever and a queasy-stomach virus were going to hit this soon. He probably would have skipped the sushi.
6:01 pm: Current time. Afraid to predict the evening. Going to check on Dad. Mom signing off.
6:00 am: Eldest son leaves for work. After work, he is heading to his future university where he will have a percussion lesson prior to a scholarship audition. Said college is a good 4 hours away.
6:10 am: Same son returns home. "Somewhere around Walmart, the brakes made this really loud pop and don't seem to be working any more." Sudden changes are made in the day's routine as transportation is rearranged so that he can take the family van.
6:30 am: Wake youngest son, who upon rising collapses into the floor in tears. His legs hurt, he says. Dad digs back into that year and a half of PT grad school from his past and checks the little guy out. Determines the three days of relatively high fever have probably left him a little dehydrated. Start pushing fluids and making him walk around to loosen up. Looks like a weepy Frankenstein for a while.
6:45 am: Check the email. Discover one came from the health insurance company with whom we'd sought temporary coverage. Our petition for coverage was denied. (Who could blame them?) So back to square one with trying to get health insurance before dad's starts in May.
7:00 am: Decide the youngest is still not well enough for a day of school, but mom must go to school for end-of-the-term business and dad must go to work as dad's boss arranged for dad to give a presentation to a large group of people. So--youngest will camp out in mom's classroom for the day, coloring and playing video games while classes come and go.
7:10 am: Whole entourage pile into dad's car, which is a perfect size for him, his briefcase and supplies--but becomes rather cramped when two more backpacks, another briefcase, three more people and a portable TV and video game system are added to the cargo.
7:45 am: Eldest son has taken off with mom's school keys. Mom borrows the secretary's master key. Fortunately only needs to do this once during the day.
8:15 am: Mom discovers she left the children's ibuprofen at home. Hoping the youngest one's fever does not return. Goes back to the secretary to see if any stock of generic children's ibuprofen is kept in the cabinets.
9:05 am: Most of mom's classes run smoothly. Kids are amenable to the little guy "visiting" for the day. Dad's presentation goes well, too.
2:00 pm: Mom's school day does not finish as peachy as it started. One kid skips out on class. Begged a bathroom run. Took a long time...finish reading War and Peace type long time. Then tells her that he had something he needed to take care of in the office and this delayed him. But secretary's story was that when the boy came to the office, he said he'd been sent there to see if he could help out at all. Oops. Got caught.
2:20 pm: Mom learns from yesterday's substitute that several kids acted up in computer class. Mom walks into the office. "I need oh--about a ream of discipline referral sheets."
3:35 pm: Dad picks up the crew.
4:10 pm: Driving home, whole family decides to do their once-per-paycheck frivolous spending. The day certainly qualifies for it. They go out for Chinese at a wonderful buffet.
5:05 pm: Too bad Dad didn't realize fever and a queasy-stomach virus were going to hit this soon. He probably would have skipped the sushi.
6:01 pm: Current time. Afraid to predict the evening. Going to check on Dad. Mom signing off.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
When Dreams Come True, Part II
So many dreams and the strange way they make Your word glare as if under the swipe of a highlighter:
A "bad" one in which I was in a strange church of bumpy, carpeted catacombs that seemed to swarm outward for light years. As C.S. Lewis succinctly puts the thought: "Something had happened to my senses so that they were now receiving impressions which would normally exceed their capacity." I perceived this place in such a state. Dark, dingy, out of focus and uneven. In this place, I was wrongly used by a spiritual authority during his "sermon" while a sad and silent woman at his side telepathically pitied me. But I surprised them both, for after the service, I marched up to him, and--standing my ground--told him that were it not for my intercession he'd have suffered much for his affront to me, suffered because I belonged to One who could protect me from him, should I but ask it.
That dream is tol here only to clarify another one that grew out of it. It was one of those strange impression dreams...a single image full of spiritual weight that proves hard to define. In it, I saw before me a small, three-legged footstool. It had a warm honey-brown leather cushion on top of three legs of beautiful gleaming wood. It filled me with feelings of good. But it was stuck fast against a large ugly ottoman that was of such a nature that I knew it came from that dark catacombs "church." They most surely did not belong together, soI tried to pull the "good" little footstool away from having to touch the weighty ugly one, but I could not budge it.
A few days later, another short impression dream came to me. One that again had that expanded-senses quality. I stood in what seemed like a park pavilion, only it was enclosed by curtains that hung from high above. I looked up and realized with a spiritual gasp that often accompanies these too-large dreams that the pavilion was a good three storeys tall and the curtains spanned the full distance, hanging from rings on a pole suspended very near the roof overhang. Actually two ranks of curtains were hung: one rank of three storey white semi-sheers hung outside another rank. This second set was but two storeys tall, also on a pole that surrounded the enclosure. The taller ones were set outside the the shorter ones, making them only visible to me, now that I think about it. The curtains, although light, were so long that they moved only slightly in the breeze, and in long rippling waves like a sea. I stood alone on the cement floor of that empty place wondering why I was there. The dream ended.
A few days later, my daily Bible reading brought me across these verses that were prominent in the heart of King David: "Now it came to pass, while David was dwelling in his house, that David said to the prophet Nathan, 'See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant is under tent curtains.'" And later he said again of his plans for building the Lord's temple--and this time said to more than the prophet, but rather said to all of assembled Israel: "Hear me, my brethren and my people: I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made preparations to build it." And I ponder this like it is a distant island and I on a bobbing boat.
More clearly, I understand this theme. Dreams of trash everywhere, and in more than just my own dreams. I told a friend once that God is not a God of waste. That nature reflects His nature in that everything dies one year but is somehow incorporated back into the newness of life that comes the next year.
Nevertheless, many times latelyI dream of being in a filthy environment.
First, I dream of being in a foul and dirty house ruled by the same being that haunted the catacombs dream. Only here, he is an evil clown, and this time his sad moppet woman was pegged as a tool to trick me; but again he fails, and not because I profess divine protection. Rather it seems this time that profession is being tested. But my response is don not by my own words or ingenuity, I hardly know why I am there or what I am doing. My success is attributed to sheer and detailed obedience. I make every move a physical enactment of an impression put to my mind. And in the end, these words ring out over all of us who inhabit that dream, ring from above: "The truth shall set you free!" And their dirty, over-used, rag-doll forms shrink away.
Then again, I dreamed of being in an abandoned house, one with no furnishings, but still filthy with the left-behind trash that finds its way to heap in corners and over threshholds. I consider cleaning it, but as I wander and debate, I find a the only piece of furniture left in the place: a large wooden secretary. I pull up the roll-top to discover another secret roll-top compartment smaller than the first. Lifting that one felt so wonderful and so magical to open, like finding a secret treasure. Inside was a secret spice rack. Twelve bottles of incredibly fine wood, five on each side flanking two central ones going the opposite direction, making a sort of cross. The two central ones striking me as the salt and pepper--the most prominent spices. But the oddity of them being wood. Usually such a rack has the spice jars of glass. Other dreams of wooden objects, wood where wood is rarely used and these wooden things always in dreams with a message of reassurance or of premonition. Only after many days pass do I make the connection--You were a carpenter. Things of supernaturally beautiful wood indicate their having been shaped in Your hands. And as usual, I can't help but wonder how I failed to see that from the start.
But, back to the theme of trash in dreams. Moving beyond my own night imagery, Elijah dreamed he found a secret stairway that led to a hidden sleeping man, and this all happening in a strangely trashy version of our own house. (And it would have to be pretty trashy version to make an impression of excess on him.)
And finally, the one in which I was in Our garden...the place where You, my Lord, and I have spent many a private conversation and enjoyed communion. The same place where You fed me burnished-gold fruit. And it was then and there that I was I suppose endowed with a wisdom direct from Your hand, for Solomon speaks of a Wisdom personified in the feminine gender. And she speaks these words: "My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold."
But one dream in that garden found it dark and stormy. I stood within the gate, somehow knowing myself protected, but nonetheless alone, and I looked out through the bars for You. Dead leaves swirled around my feet. Dead leaves...anything not immediately incorporated back into life in that garden place was an unusual sign. How long since I had that dream: one year, or maybe two? So long to understand the purpose of the common theme. Funny how You can focus it for me in what seems like an instant, like the view through a lens grows suddenly sharp with one small turn, making everything comprehensible.
The turn of that lens began with my making such a racket through prayer and beseeching. I reached out and indeed did not find You anywhere near. I remembered a time when You were always obvious to me within an instant of my seeking. Now I go days without that sense of Your personal presence. Why? Then I feared that my own recollection was faulty. Had our intimacy ever been what I remembered? Or was my imagination playing with my memory? But like a weaned child I sat quietly while doing without You; until finally, You came and said to me: "What if it were true? What if I were no more than a cardboard dummy, and all you suffering were in vain? What would you do?"
First, my heart leaped at that familiar knowing, that sureness of Your nearness once again. But I proceeded immediately to the question You presented. "I suppose I'd turn bitter, learn to hate life, find I had to keep muddling through anyway, finally realizing that nothing had changed except that now I approached it all with a bad attitude. Then again, I could turn bad myself. Submit to wickedness for the sake of embracing the ease that comes with it--but naah...that never seemed to work for me like it does for other people."
"That was a gift," You said pointedly.
"I figured as much," I said in return just as direct.
Then I laughed while I climbed into Your perfect father-lap, and I raised my hand to touch Your face. At that moment, I had one of those jolts to my imagination that often accompany Your visits. I saw my own hand carried a scar.
Long I have gone with nothing but a memory of what You told me about that scar. In that prayer-scape, we stood together, my hand in Yours; and I asked You what this phrase meant: to get behind the affliction of Christ. To suffer for Your sake, and not for the sake of sin, but in order to cooperate with the work You would accomplish in this place. How does one experience it? How does one endure it? And immediately light pierced through Your hand and then mine.
I learned a lot in receiving that vision of scarring. First, that it came only by the sanction of Your Divine Light. Second, that it came through You first. Third, that its magnitude would be minimal compared to the rest of Your suffering, for You went even unto death and into the depths of Hell. But, it would nevertheless mark me as associated with You. This vision I had well over a year ago. Many times in the intervening days I have seem myself a player (obviously) in these settings of conflict between good and evil, but never hve I borne that mark accomplished upon me...until now. So I am encouraged even in the midst of the trials. I am encouraged to know that what was foretold is coming to be, and I am surviving.
And then this morning, I pondered these dreams and the way I have been serving as a litmus test, a sorting tool, the daughter of His people who sits in affliction while He looks for the answer to the question: Who will help? And the trash in the dreams--all that time--they told the story of these days of affliction.
One little proverb in the quiet of my morning Bible reading today.
One little proverb read in the dark while others slept.
One little proverb shattering so much confusion in the visionary world even as it lightly whispers into the peace of the functional world.
And this is it:
"Much food is in the fallow ground of the poor, and for lack of justice there is waste."
We have been fallow ground, lying in wait for the opportunity to be productive. Knowing food waits to grow, looking for the coming of spring.
And as for all the waste: it marks the days in which justice has been measured all around us, in which we have indeed fulfilled our side of the agreement, in which we said we would step behind those afflictions of Yours as You sort and measure what has been, what is, and look to what is to be.
And in every one of these justice-dreams, upon completion of that time spent studying trash comes a time of change, exploration, discovery, and fresh newness.
So Scott, I would tell you this:
You've heard me recently claiming that while I don't have a death-wish, I also don't have a life-wish right now, that life as it has been lately has held little appeal for me, especially the more I become aware of that larger reality. And even though we feel at an impasse in our joint venture into the will of God regarding what even now remains out of focus in God's plans for our futures; nevertheless, once again, my husband, I can say I look forward to the days ahead.
A "bad" one in which I was in a strange church of bumpy, carpeted catacombs that seemed to swarm outward for light years. As C.S. Lewis succinctly puts the thought: "Something had happened to my senses so that they were now receiving impressions which would normally exceed their capacity." I perceived this place in such a state. Dark, dingy, out of focus and uneven. In this place, I was wrongly used by a spiritual authority during his "sermon" while a sad and silent woman at his side telepathically pitied me. But I surprised them both, for after the service, I marched up to him, and--standing my ground--told him that were it not for my intercession he'd have suffered much for his affront to me, suffered because I belonged to One who could protect me from him, should I but ask it.
That dream is tol here only to clarify another one that grew out of it. It was one of those strange impression dreams...a single image full of spiritual weight that proves hard to define. In it, I saw before me a small, three-legged footstool. It had a warm honey-brown leather cushion on top of three legs of beautiful gleaming wood. It filled me with feelings of good. But it was stuck fast against a large ugly ottoman that was of such a nature that I knew it came from that dark catacombs "church." They most surely did not belong together, soI tried to pull the "good" little footstool away from having to touch the weighty ugly one, but I could not budge it.
A few days later, another short impression dream came to me. One that again had that expanded-senses quality. I stood in what seemed like a park pavilion, only it was enclosed by curtains that hung from high above. I looked up and realized with a spiritual gasp that often accompanies these too-large dreams that the pavilion was a good three storeys tall and the curtains spanned the full distance, hanging from rings on a pole suspended very near the roof overhang. Actually two ranks of curtains were hung: one rank of three storey white semi-sheers hung outside another rank. This second set was but two storeys tall, also on a pole that surrounded the enclosure. The taller ones were set outside the the shorter ones, making them only visible to me, now that I think about it. The curtains, although light, were so long that they moved only slightly in the breeze, and in long rippling waves like a sea. I stood alone on the cement floor of that empty place wondering why I was there. The dream ended.
A few days later, my daily Bible reading brought me across these verses that were prominent in the heart of King David: "Now it came to pass, while David was dwelling in his house, that David said to the prophet Nathan, 'See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant is under tent curtains.'" And later he said again of his plans for building the Lord's temple--and this time said to more than the prophet, but rather said to all of assembled Israel: "Hear me, my brethren and my people: I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made preparations to build it." And I ponder this like it is a distant island and I on a bobbing boat.
More clearly, I understand this theme. Dreams of trash everywhere, and in more than just my own dreams. I told a friend once that God is not a God of waste. That nature reflects His nature in that everything dies one year but is somehow incorporated back into the newness of life that comes the next year.
Nevertheless, many times latelyI dream of being in a filthy environment.
First, I dream of being in a foul and dirty house ruled by the same being that haunted the catacombs dream. Only here, he is an evil clown, and this time his sad moppet woman was pegged as a tool to trick me; but again he fails, and not because I profess divine protection. Rather it seems this time that profession is being tested. But my response is don not by my own words or ingenuity, I hardly know why I am there or what I am doing. My success is attributed to sheer and detailed obedience. I make every move a physical enactment of an impression put to my mind. And in the end, these words ring out over all of us who inhabit that dream, ring from above: "The truth shall set you free!" And their dirty, over-used, rag-doll forms shrink away.
Then again, I dreamed of being in an abandoned house, one with no furnishings, but still filthy with the left-behind trash that finds its way to heap in corners and over threshholds. I consider cleaning it, but as I wander and debate, I find a the only piece of furniture left in the place: a large wooden secretary. I pull up the roll-top to discover another secret roll-top compartment smaller than the first. Lifting that one felt so wonderful and so magical to open, like finding a secret treasure. Inside was a secret spice rack. Twelve bottles of incredibly fine wood, five on each side flanking two central ones going the opposite direction, making a sort of cross. The two central ones striking me as the salt and pepper--the most prominent spices. But the oddity of them being wood. Usually such a rack has the spice jars of glass. Other dreams of wooden objects, wood where wood is rarely used and these wooden things always in dreams with a message of reassurance or of premonition. Only after many days pass do I make the connection--You were a carpenter. Things of supernaturally beautiful wood indicate their having been shaped in Your hands. And as usual, I can't help but wonder how I failed to see that from the start.
But, back to the theme of trash in dreams. Moving beyond my own night imagery, Elijah dreamed he found a secret stairway that led to a hidden sleeping man, and this all happening in a strangely trashy version of our own house. (And it would have to be pretty trashy version to make an impression of excess on him.)
And finally, the one in which I was in Our garden...the place where You, my Lord, and I have spent many a private conversation and enjoyed communion. The same place where You fed me burnished-gold fruit. And it was then and there that I was I suppose endowed with a wisdom direct from Your hand, for Solomon speaks of a Wisdom personified in the feminine gender. And she speaks these words: "My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold."
But one dream in that garden found it dark and stormy. I stood within the gate, somehow knowing myself protected, but nonetheless alone, and I looked out through the bars for You. Dead leaves swirled around my feet. Dead leaves...anything not immediately incorporated back into life in that garden place was an unusual sign. How long since I had that dream: one year, or maybe two? So long to understand the purpose of the common theme. Funny how You can focus it for me in what seems like an instant, like the view through a lens grows suddenly sharp with one small turn, making everything comprehensible.
The turn of that lens began with my making such a racket through prayer and beseeching. I reached out and indeed did not find You anywhere near. I remembered a time when You were always obvious to me within an instant of my seeking. Now I go days without that sense of Your personal presence. Why? Then I feared that my own recollection was faulty. Had our intimacy ever been what I remembered? Or was my imagination playing with my memory? But like a weaned child I sat quietly while doing without You; until finally, You came and said to me: "What if it were true? What if I were no more than a cardboard dummy, and all you suffering were in vain? What would you do?"
First, my heart leaped at that familiar knowing, that sureness of Your nearness once again. But I proceeded immediately to the question You presented. "I suppose I'd turn bitter, learn to hate life, find I had to keep muddling through anyway, finally realizing that nothing had changed except that now I approached it all with a bad attitude. Then again, I could turn bad myself. Submit to wickedness for the sake of embracing the ease that comes with it--but naah...that never seemed to work for me like it does for other people."
"That was a gift," You said pointedly.
"I figured as much," I said in return just as direct.
Then I laughed while I climbed into Your perfect father-lap, and I raised my hand to touch Your face. At that moment, I had one of those jolts to my imagination that often accompany Your visits. I saw my own hand carried a scar.
Long I have gone with nothing but a memory of what You told me about that scar. In that prayer-scape, we stood together, my hand in Yours; and I asked You what this phrase meant: to get behind the affliction of Christ. To suffer for Your sake, and not for the sake of sin, but in order to cooperate with the work You would accomplish in this place. How does one experience it? How does one endure it? And immediately light pierced through Your hand and then mine.
I learned a lot in receiving that vision of scarring. First, that it came only by the sanction of Your Divine Light. Second, that it came through You first. Third, that its magnitude would be minimal compared to the rest of Your suffering, for You went even unto death and into the depths of Hell. But, it would nevertheless mark me as associated with You. This vision I had well over a year ago. Many times in the intervening days I have seem myself a player (obviously) in these settings of conflict between good and evil, but never hve I borne that mark accomplished upon me...until now. So I am encouraged even in the midst of the trials. I am encouraged to know that what was foretold is coming to be, and I am surviving.
And then this morning, I pondered these dreams and the way I have been serving as a litmus test, a sorting tool, the daughter of His people who sits in affliction while He looks for the answer to the question: Who will help? And the trash in the dreams--all that time--they told the story of these days of affliction.
One little proverb in the quiet of my morning Bible reading today.
One little proverb read in the dark while others slept.
One little proverb shattering so much confusion in the visionary world even as it lightly whispers into the peace of the functional world.
And this is it:
"Much food is in the fallow ground of the poor, and for lack of justice there is waste."
We have been fallow ground, lying in wait for the opportunity to be productive. Knowing food waits to grow, looking for the coming of spring.
And as for all the waste: it marks the days in which justice has been measured all around us, in which we have indeed fulfilled our side of the agreement, in which we said we would step behind those afflictions of Yours as You sort and measure what has been, what is, and look to what is to be.
And in every one of these justice-dreams, upon completion of that time spent studying trash comes a time of change, exploration, discovery, and fresh newness.
So Scott, I would tell you this:
You've heard me recently claiming that while I don't have a death-wish, I also don't have a life-wish right now, that life as it has been lately has held little appeal for me, especially the more I become aware of that larger reality. And even though we feel at an impasse in our joint venture into the will of God regarding what even now remains out of focus in God's plans for our futures; nevertheless, once again, my husband, I can say I look forward to the days ahead.
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