Redemption...The Crystal Spectre, Part III

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that. But the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." --Mark Twain

What became of the Dark Spectre, suddenly stripped of death but not yet breathed full with a breath of life? Hanging between life and death, as it were? I didn't know what to expect. I was certain that the next part of his story depended on him, not on my prophetic gifting. I put thoughts of him on a shelf. That's why it surprised me when I was graced with awareness of his redemption--fuller redemption.

It happened during church, and just after communion, appropriately. I still remember the last time this one who attached himself to me tried to attend church with me. It served him with the the spiritual equivalent of profound nausea. I looked at him, gripping the chair before him as waves of nausea obviously washed over him.

"Being in a church of worshipers does this to you?" I asked in surprise.
He nodded.
"I've never seen anything like it--" I mused, surprised.
"I'm not like you--" He said with a sort of gasp and fled. From then on, he watched me attend church from afar. I have a feeling he expected that being attached to me would change his tolerance. Apparently, it didn't.

That's why it was all the more glorious when last Sunday, just after communion when we began to sing closing worship, I was caught up to a vision of him being restored, and it was as a stately rain of beads of light flowing down to anoint him and reform his tortured spirit wheels. Now, he did not double over in pain and sickness at the nearness of the One he'd rejected; rather he raised his arms and sang. And it was glorious. There is nothing quite like the redemption song of the unforgivable when faith has its perfect work yet again. And I felt for a moment akin to John the Baptist--although this one was not Christ, it was nevertheless his time--his day to be heard as a free worshiper and not as one cowering, spinning through a hopeless existence. He was oblivious to me and I was joyful for him. I had offered the womb of his birth, of a sort, but all things in a womb must needs be born at some point. This was his birth. And even as I stood, smiling in the darkness behind his moment of glory, You came to me and whispered in my ear the thought behind the quote above--surprising me because I wasn't seeking recognition for myself, I was too caught up in being happy for him. "You and I are one in yet another way," You whispered to me. "Allowing others to do greater things than we, and by the strength granted to them through our open hands. So begins another age for this one." You reminded me of our dance, when You would twirl with me in Your arms, and a beam of substantial light would pierces the hole in your hand, on through my own hand, so we are joined by a cord of light running through our clasped hands. You reminded me of that dream so long ago--"You will follow Me, be like Me in my very arms..." One more dream accomplished.

"All has not yet been revealed..." You once spoke to me in that voice that creates realities. Indeed. There is more in that desert that holds the shadow of the Cross than we think to realize.