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.