On being wine...the Crystal Spectre, part I

It's been a while since I've written on the topic of my encounters with the dark one who would make a trade to have me in his company--and it is not easy to write of him, because I don't' fully understand who he is, nor how he trades; I know the trade evokes corporate joy in heaven, but the whole scenario is a dream-madness that I don't understand. Nevertheless it follows a logical and reasonable progression and feels significant in a larger way than I comprehend, so I record it. Only now do I feel inclined to speak of it, because only now am I beginning to learn how these images from the fantastic can funnel down into a practical, perfectly sane presentation in normal human life. I thank a few dear friends for being instruments to the purpose of my instruction. My own perceptions are one thing. To live them out is another. The spiritual may feel like drifting into madness, but the physical gives it sanity, much like the rule of time in a magnetized, gravity-riddled universe.

If I should wish to attach these latest dreams to other dreams on the subject, I'd go back to the Strange Pilgrimage ones in March of '07 which represent my being in the realm of this one who traded for me, of Christ's abiding presence despite that unholy environment. I'd also point to the one of the visions of power in April of '06 as a description of the original dream of encounter with this fallen being. These dreams have spread themselves as such a thin glaze over the last few years of my life that I can't even remember which have been reported here and which have stayed on the private pages of my prayer journal. If the one about his trading for me isn't here--it needs to be. In it, I now perceive myself serving as 'representative' of the city of Jerusalem, unless it is the other way around, but can not say for certain. What is a symbol and what is the thing symbolized is an area still weak in my development, but growing stronger. Whatever I may represent, I know this: ever present--either on stage or in the wings--is the one who seems covered in death, and ever present is the covering of "my" strange relationship with him.

One other time--I don't find it in past entries so I mention it here--I dreamed I was granted the power to flake that layer of death off his crystal form, making the incredible possible: white light could once more strike his form, pass through him and become the myriad of rainbows that were the fruit of his original design, a return to his original purpose.

Here then are the most recent in that progression--the next move in a chess game that goes beyond the cosmic, and certainly beyond my own strategic skills! I dreamed today of a large commercial coffee maker. It had multiple warmers, with pots warming on each one, but my hand took a pot and raised it to a second tier, setting it in a metal carriage where the actual coffee drip could fill the pot with fresh coffee. When I woke, it was in my mind that I go into a season--after a rather long dry spell I'd say--of revelation. I go into a season of being lifted up to receive new "coffee" which has been a long-term metaphor for me. It serves as symbol akin to the turning of water into wine, something the people needed in order to continue celebrating a glorious wedding. In kind with Christ's miracle making wine out of water at that wedding-- even so, I would go up to receive the coffee that is a universal symbol in our day. The whimsy of it makes me chuckle.

Indeed, a heightened sense of the other realm returns like the tide, along with a fortuitous motivation to get myself physically healthier--exercise and diet discipline more rigorous--and I'll need it as these times of revelation always take a physical toll on my body. Anyway, the immediacy of interaction began one moment in October when I was reading a book by Taylor Caldwell called Dialogues with the Devil. The book gave me much food for thought as it portrays our enemy as being a seducer of man more than a willful harmer of man. His goal is rather to convince man to harm himself in order to prove to God that He made a mistake in creating something so base and gullible as man. In his mind--by Caldwell's presentation--he is doing God a great service by demonstrating how very vile we humans can be. He tempts us, watches us closely until we fall, then highlights us before the throne of God, saying: "See, see how low they can stoop? Are You not yet convinced to be disgusted with them beyond reparation? Let it be that we, your angels, live as your only servants in this universe." In this scene, he does not exercise violence himself, he only provides the initiative that makes us shoot ourselves in the foot!

The story made me frequently reflective, pausing to pray and consider as I read. The idea that he could not have the faith to see some future benefit in God's relationship with degraded man is certainly understandable; but being one of the horrific species myself, I can't help but turn to him and say: "Can't you just let us love Him? We may not be brilliant or beautiful or excellent in the hierarchy of things created. We may be an enigma that is a thorn in your flesh, but must you ever interfere with our ability to perceive His love for us? How does this benefit Him? And when one of us does find Him to be magnificent enough that we seek His will with gladness, you call us 'bots' and mindless sheep. Surely it grated on you every time Christ cast our sheep-like status in a positive light and gloried in being our Shepherd. Do you despise us for moving about on the spirit plane with you? We carry our wine of the spirit in crude wineskins. Why will you not accept that the wine is destined for new skins and an existence in them worthy of the creative endeavors of the Ancient of Days?"

I sighed and dropped my eyes back to my reading. The next line read: "Lucifer dashed the wine in his goblet on the grass." I laughed at the seamlessness of the imagery.

I once dreamed of being a happy blade of grass in a sea of grass, my little green face lifted blissfully to heaven. Satan has indeed splashed the essence of his destiny all over the fields of mankind. I gaped at such an immediate response from the Spirit and the Christ to my musings before Satan and apparently before all heaven. It seemed as though I'd been granted an opportunity to stand for mankind alongside Christ in that great trial that runs in heaven's courtroom--what a moment!

Can bitterness save this one whose wine was dashed all over mankind? Certainly not. His sacrifice is therefore all the more tragic, though his continued efforts and the ever-more frenetic energy of them is understandable. He is the quintessential tragic hero. But is that the end? If the story were written by the Greeks, it would be. But this story is larger than man. So what is its conclusion?

I dreamed once that I could peel off the death that encrusted him. That death had destroyed his capacity to diffuse light and make it lovely, the very essecene of his raison d'etre. I dreamed I could peel that death off. When I dreamed this, and made my offer to peel--demonstrating my ability by peeling the tiniest of chinks, he did not answer. Rather he turned and looked at Christ who stood behind me. Their gazed locked. Christ was behind me, I could not see His face, but the other one's expression was filled with intensity and sorrow. It was a mystery to me. That he knew the Christ intimately was evident on his face--for he had a face at that point in the vision. But what else was implied in that look of resignation? Maybe it was the thought, "You saved them to save me?" Is such a thing possible? Can it be? Is faith an issue in believing such a thing, or is it heresy to entertain such a belief? Could it be the will of almighty God: that the atonement of the one condemned might be possible through embracing the one whom he held in greatest prejudice, that this one could serve as gatekeeper for him--because this one had the Spirit of the Christ within, a role even his honored brethren could not fulfill?

But what of prophecy? Does it allow for any such thing as the fanciful exchange described above? Should knowing it won't work be a good enough reason for not trying, if trying is the most agape-love thing to do?

What of when John tells us Jesus' words: All things are possible with God. Is this a vision of Christ taking authority over death to the degree that death is set aside entirely? For now, it is still an enigma and incomplete to my heart, so I wait for further revelation.