Looking for a specific quote by this favorite author/philosopher of mine led me to a page full of wonderful quotes from a book by Nathan Jensen--too many to make a simple status update on my facebook. So I can enjoy them again later:
"In coming to understand anything we are rejecting the facts as they are for us in favour of the facts as they are."
"Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger."
"The extremity of its evil had passed beyond all struggle into some state which bore a horrible similarity to innocence."
"And then she understood the devilish cunning of the enemies' plan. By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger."
"To admire Satan [in Paradise Lost] is to give one's vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography."
"Every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us..."
"A creature revolting against a creator is revolting against the source of his own powers--including even his power to revolt...It is like the scent of a flower trying to destroy the flower."
"'We do not truly see light, we only see slower things lit by it, so that for us light is on the edge--the last thing we know before things become too swift for us.'"
"To play well the scenes in which we are 'on' concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it."
"Some people probably think of the Resurrection as a desperate last moment expedient to save the Hero from a situation which had got out of the Author's control."
"The difference [God's] timelessness makes is that this now (which slips away from you even as you say the word now) is for Him infinite."
"Looking for God--or Heaven--by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters..."
"Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions."
"He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself..."
"Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves."
Friday, April 09, 2010
Saturday, April 03, 2010
What do you call Bible-reading?
Many read for many reasons. One of mine is to understand the things you tell me in the night watches.
For instance, in one dream I had, water suddenly began spraying out of my body, and I was much occupied with whether a nearby rack of coats should or should not get wet from the spray. I moved the rack away from me, into a choir room with a young man sitting on practice risers. This dream happened years, ago but it rushed back to me when I found this verse, which gave the strange symbolism meaning:
Mic 2:6 Prophesy ye not, [say they to them that] prophesy: they shall not prophesy to them, [that] they shall not take shame. (Or as another version puts it: "Do not prattle," you say to those who prophesy. So they shall not prophesy to you; They shall not return insult for insult, [or He shall not take shame.])
It doesn't mean so much unless you glance at the footnotes and find that the literal Hebrew for "prophesy" is "natalph"which means "to drip, to fall in drops." Ezekiel was told to "drip/drop" prophesy this way twice, Amos once. What's more, the literal for the word shame is "to be clothed with shame" making my dream now seem like a message from God saying, Don't prophesy to these who could be clothed with shame under the effect of that prophecy, but rather put them in the company of the one I've shown you is waiting. It took years for this one to mean such a thing!
I had another related dream, one given at a completely different time but containing the same character who received the coats from me, and it has come to fuller meaning as well. In that one, I stayed behind during an earthquake to rescue this one, who by now is a falling ruler. I've written in detail of it on another post here, but in short my compassion led me to be trapped in darkness with him after all others had escaped. He had no voice to pray, so I prayed alone, but I knew he listened. The dream did not tell me whether he found his prayer-voice again, nor whether either of us escaped the dark, lifeless place. My dreams of the Crystal Spectre ran along similar channels of hopelessness crashing into faith, leading me to believe that with God all things are indeed possible. Now I read this passage as if I hear the voice of the one in my dream indeed learning to pray:
Mic 7:7 Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.
Mic 7:8 Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD [shall be] a light unto me.
Mic 7:9 I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, [and] I shall behold his righteousness.
Finally, there are two dreams of knives that have hung over me for a long time: both are detailed on here, as well. In one, I see a loaf of bread, and my hand holds a knife. As I slice the bread, a voice says the classic communion text: this is my body broken for you. When the bread is divided, and the knife blade touches the cutting board, a shot of electricity runs up my arm from my pinkey finger that wakes me it is so strong. In the other one, a wall of interrupted human progress lays piled higher than the eye can see, and young people ask me if I have a knife, as they intend to cut through that wall. I dig in my purse and find a little box cutter, very sharp but not very impressive-looking. One young man runs his thumb over it and says it isn't sharp at all. I try to explain that he felt the blade on the dull side, but before I can speak, he is approached by another young man who holds a beautiful large scimitar-shaped knife with a shiny blade and a yellow cloisonne handle. I tell him I'm sure that knife only appears a good choice, that it won't hold up under actual usage; but he and his friends are already running eagerly to try it on the wall. I go my own way alone. Two knife dreams, very different stories.
Now, today, in my actual world, a young friend of the generation to match my dream posts on his facebook, "I need a bread knife." And although I haven't found the verse yet to lead me to "see" precisely what this power is in the first knife dream, nor what the wall and the poor choices mean in the second one; I'm nevertheless watching for it, my young friend in his unwittingly random way alerted me to the fact that it is time to be watchful...
For instance, in one dream I had, water suddenly began spraying out of my body, and I was much occupied with whether a nearby rack of coats should or should not get wet from the spray. I moved the rack away from me, into a choir room with a young man sitting on practice risers. This dream happened years, ago but it rushed back to me when I found this verse, which gave the strange symbolism meaning:
Mic 2:6 Prophesy ye not, [say they to them that] prophesy: they shall not prophesy to them, [that] they shall not take shame. (Or as another version puts it: "Do not prattle," you say to those who prophesy. So they shall not prophesy to you; They shall not return insult for insult, [or He shall not take shame.])
It doesn't mean so much unless you glance at the footnotes and find that the literal Hebrew for "prophesy" is "natalph"which means "to drip, to fall in drops." Ezekiel was told to "drip/drop" prophesy this way twice, Amos once. What's more, the literal for the word shame is "to be clothed with shame" making my dream now seem like a message from God saying, Don't prophesy to these who could be clothed with shame under the effect of that prophecy, but rather put them in the company of the one I've shown you is waiting. It took years for this one to mean such a thing!
I had another related dream, one given at a completely different time but containing the same character who received the coats from me, and it has come to fuller meaning as well. In that one, I stayed behind during an earthquake to rescue this one, who by now is a falling ruler. I've written in detail of it on another post here, but in short my compassion led me to be trapped in darkness with him after all others had escaped. He had no voice to pray, so I prayed alone, but I knew he listened. The dream did not tell me whether he found his prayer-voice again, nor whether either of us escaped the dark, lifeless place. My dreams of the Crystal Spectre ran along similar channels of hopelessness crashing into faith, leading me to believe that with God all things are indeed possible. Now I read this passage as if I hear the voice of the one in my dream indeed learning to pray:
Mic 7:7 Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.
Mic 7:8 Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD [shall be] a light unto me.
Mic 7:9 I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, [and] I shall behold his righteousness.
Finally, there are two dreams of knives that have hung over me for a long time: both are detailed on here, as well. In one, I see a loaf of bread, and my hand holds a knife. As I slice the bread, a voice says the classic communion text: this is my body broken for you. When the bread is divided, and the knife blade touches the cutting board, a shot of electricity runs up my arm from my pinkey finger that wakes me it is so strong. In the other one, a wall of interrupted human progress lays piled higher than the eye can see, and young people ask me if I have a knife, as they intend to cut through that wall. I dig in my purse and find a little box cutter, very sharp but not very impressive-looking. One young man runs his thumb over it and says it isn't sharp at all. I try to explain that he felt the blade on the dull side, but before I can speak, he is approached by another young man who holds a beautiful large scimitar-shaped knife with a shiny blade and a yellow cloisonne handle. I tell him I'm sure that knife only appears a good choice, that it won't hold up under actual usage; but he and his friends are already running eagerly to try it on the wall. I go my own way alone. Two knife dreams, very different stories.
Now, today, in my actual world, a young friend of the generation to match my dream posts on his facebook, "I need a bread knife." And although I haven't found the verse yet to lead me to "see" precisely what this power is in the first knife dream, nor what the wall and the poor choices mean in the second one; I'm nevertheless watching for it, my young friend in his unwittingly random way alerted me to the fact that it is time to be watchful...
Saturday, March 13, 2010
What Do You Call Righteous Judgment?
A lot of dung-slinging is going on in society today in the name of righteous judgment. A lot of criticism is floating around in the name of defining justice. (Does it mean giving a pittance to the poor man, but stopping short of detailing why he is poor in the first place?) Most troublesome of all, how do you tell someone you think they're dead wrong when they believe they have all righteous wrath on their side? This is a heavy cloud of many layers over our world today.
And yet, You've been showing me that You have the work of a judge--particularly in the context of prophetic warning--ahead of me. You're working on teaching me how to go about it Your way. I look at the dream I had about warning people of an earthquake, but since they didn't "feel" it in the permanent, main complex of their lives, they did not take the warning seriously. (My husband, too, has had this dream of being sent to warn those who did not want to hear him when he dreamed he was rescuing people off the tail of an airplane. He cried out that it was about to explode; but the first class passengers were taking their time, gathering their belongings, leaving nothing behind, until finally he had to leave them because the fireball erupted at their end of the plane and started flying back toward him. He jumped to the escape slide in time to at least save himself.) What do you do with these calls to warn and rescue?
The first thing I find You're doing with me is to refine my definition of rescuer. I muddy that definition too much with being an enabler of irresponsibility in others. In visiting with a friend, I was able to define for myself a pattern I tend to follow: when I see something before me that I'm fit to do and do well, I rush in and begin to build things that others could help with, even learn from, but because it's easier for me to do them myself, I ignore opportunities to motivate others to do grow, at least in those domains that call for rescue work. So I weaken those around me who should help me and broaden the boundary of my own workload until I make myself so ill and utterly burned out on the assignment that I collapse and have to leave it entirely to recouperate. But this year I've been learning some new ways.
I've been subbing this year, not teaching, just subbing. I've subbed primarily for a woman who is a band director and had some sudden emergency health situations arise in her family that called her out of the workplace pretty frequently. In this subbing assignment, I've had to limit myself. I was not in charge for more than a day or two at a time. I had clear-cut boundaries as to how I could use my skills. I could help kids learn the music in their folders, but I could not choose which kids to help nor choose the music they'd play, etc. So I learned how to walk inside a fence.
As always, a test came after the training. I was offered a specific salaried job, one that fit a skill set I knew I had. Should I take it? This particular job was one the rescuer in me would have lapped up like honey, but fools rush in... So I came to You for an answer, and the answer You gave me at least initially was "No, don't take it." You used supernatural means to tell me; You used natural means, but You made it very clear what Your advice was at this juncture. I could obey or not, but I couldn't say You left me guessing. I backed away from it.
And yet, You've been showing me that You have the work of a judge--particularly in the context of prophetic warning--ahead of me. You're working on teaching me how to go about it Your way. I look at the dream I had about warning people of an earthquake, but since they didn't "feel" it in the permanent, main complex of their lives, they did not take the warning seriously. (My husband, too, has had this dream of being sent to warn those who did not want to hear him when he dreamed he was rescuing people off the tail of an airplane. He cried out that it was about to explode; but the first class passengers were taking their time, gathering their belongings, leaving nothing behind, until finally he had to leave them because the fireball erupted at their end of the plane and started flying back toward him. He jumped to the escape slide in time to at least save himself.) What do you do with these calls to warn and rescue?
The first thing I find You're doing with me is to refine my definition of rescuer. I muddy that definition too much with being an enabler of irresponsibility in others. In visiting with a friend, I was able to define for myself a pattern I tend to follow: when I see something before me that I'm fit to do and do well, I rush in and begin to build things that others could help with, even learn from, but because it's easier for me to do them myself, I ignore opportunities to motivate others to do grow, at least in those domains that call for rescue work. So I weaken those around me who should help me and broaden the boundary of my own workload until I make myself so ill and utterly burned out on the assignment that I collapse and have to leave it entirely to recouperate. But this year I've been learning some new ways.
I've been subbing this year, not teaching, just subbing. I've subbed primarily for a woman who is a band director and had some sudden emergency health situations arise in her family that called her out of the workplace pretty frequently. In this subbing assignment, I've had to limit myself. I was not in charge for more than a day or two at a time. I had clear-cut boundaries as to how I could use my skills. I could help kids learn the music in their folders, but I could not choose which kids to help nor choose the music they'd play, etc. So I learned how to walk inside a fence.
As always, a test came after the training. I was offered a specific salaried job, one that fit a skill set I knew I had. Should I take it? This particular job was one the rescuer in me would have lapped up like honey, but fools rush in... So I came to You for an answer, and the answer You gave me at least initially was "No, don't take it." You used supernatural means to tell me; You used natural means, but You made it very clear what Your advice was at this juncture. I could obey or not, but I couldn't say You left me guessing. I backed away from it.
Not until then did I even realize it was the test, nor even the depths of the lesson I'd been learning, but now that I've passed that test, You're showing me how it fits with the larger picture of what You're preparing in me on these other fronts--those of giving appropriate warning where it is needed. I know this is Your next "lesson" because You brought back another dream of portent that made no sense, until now.
In that dream, I was standing beside a fence that was broken, and at the breach stood a very foolish, spotted horse. It was making the breach larger, trying to get out of the fenced area. This horse's motive for destroying the fence was not spite or meanness; it destroyed purely out of ignorance and misplaced curiosity. But it was not a horse that would listen to reason. The only course of action fitting to keep that horse safely inside the fence was to repair the fence itself. Suddenly, I had a tool in my right hand and wire in my left. I repaired the fence with these. When the horse saw the fence repaired, it trotted away back toward the barn. I remember this dream vividly now. Though I had it long ago, still You brought it back. I felt You telling me that this test was a way of proving myself, demonstrate that I'd stay inside a fence myself before I would be fit to mend anyone else's broken fences, before I'd be fit to address anyone else's unintentional transgressions. The offer of a job I'd be good at was the offer of a breach in the fence. My refusing to go through it showed I respected the fence You set for me whether I "had" to remain within its bounds or not.
The next day after I'd come through this test, I reached for my devotional reading and found this:
Mat 7:1 "JUDGE not, that you be not judged.
Mat 7:2 "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
Mat 7:3 "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?
Mat 7:4 "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye?
Mat 7:5 "Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
In that dream, I was standing beside a fence that was broken, and at the breach stood a very foolish, spotted horse. It was making the breach larger, trying to get out of the fenced area. This horse's motive for destroying the fence was not spite or meanness; it destroyed purely out of ignorance and misplaced curiosity. But it was not a horse that would listen to reason. The only course of action fitting to keep that horse safely inside the fence was to repair the fence itself. Suddenly, I had a tool in my right hand and wire in my left. I repaired the fence with these. When the horse saw the fence repaired, it trotted away back toward the barn. I remember this dream vividly now. Though I had it long ago, still You brought it back. I felt You telling me that this test was a way of proving myself, demonstrate that I'd stay inside a fence myself before I would be fit to mend anyone else's broken fences, before I'd be fit to address anyone else's unintentional transgressions. The offer of a job I'd be good at was the offer of a breach in the fence. My refusing to go through it showed I respected the fence You set for me whether I "had" to remain within its bounds or not.
The next day after I'd come through this test, I reached for my devotional reading and found this:
Mat 7:1 "JUDGE not, that you be not judged.
Mat 7:2 "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
Mat 7:3 "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?
Mat 7:4 "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye?
Mat 7:5 "Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
This text was analyzed further than many writers take it in the devotional I read. Most stop at berating the reader for having an eyeful of un-addressed plank--which when you think about it is rather ironic--but this devotional went on to say that when a person reaches that point of seeing clearly to judge others as verse 5 describes, the act looks quite different from what we usually call judging. It comes more from the position of being an encourager than anything else. "I see a speck in your eye, and if you have the courage and humility to accept that it is there, you might become hopeless, but don't be discouraged. I had a plank in my own eye, and look at me now! You can deal with this if I could deal with that." It is a very different approach to judging than we usually see. Who equates a judge with being a cheerleader? I don't know which is the chicken and which the egg--the man who can't hear he is wrong or the man who does a poor job of talking to him about it.
Now that I'm in the middle of this unit of study, where do I go from here? I can't say I know exactly, but I do know metaphorically. In the dream, tools were put in my hands to repair a broken fence in a world where everyone else seems to be beating up senseless horses. That's where I'm headed now.
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Peace I Leave with You...
It's not the first time and I doubt if it is the last that I say this on here: the enigmas in a dream are often the very link to God's purpose in giving that dream to one of His people.
I had one a couple of years ago with profound enigmas. It went like this:
I was at work, and it was a place where I worked then but don't now.
Enigma #1: I was there completely naked, except for the shoes I wore. Even my dream self found this a little odd, but no one else in the dream seemed to notice my bareness. I went through a variety of school-related activities, choosing curriculum with another teacher, wandering the halls, supervising things.
Enigma #2: at one point, I was offered a fabulous blue satin gown to wear, and it would indeed have covered my bareness, but I knew it was too fanciful for me to function properly while wearing it, and seeing that no one really noticed that I was naked anyway--I opted to remain unclothed. After that, I no longer paid any attention to my lack of attire.
Enigma #3: After a bit longer, I went toward a back door where I saw through a window that one of the portable buildings (the one that has housed High School Spanish and History classes) suddenly experienced an earthquake that upended it and dropped the Spanish side of it deep underground. Like the Titanic sinking, it tipped and dropped into the earth. I ran to find the high school secretary, searching for her on the playground which now housed a pavilion that wasn't there before. What's more, a lot more shade covered the grassy area than I remembered. These things struck me as differences from what I expected, but my main objective was to find the secretary, so I resumed my search for her. When I found her, though, she was too preoccupied with her concern for a young woman to get involved in the earthquake dilemma. So I went back to the offices of the main building and told them what I'd seen: "There was an earthquake out back and one of the portables is upended, surely demolished."
Enigma #4: Their response. The consensus in the main building was that if the earthquake didn't affect the permanent structure--that being the main building--then surely it wasn't that serious an issue, and no one went to investigate the woeful temporary structures on the edge of the woods. I was grieved that I could not convince anyone to take the situation seriously, but went on with my day, which took me to the school library.
Enigma #5: There I met God, who told me He was pleased that I announced what I saw, no matter what the response was. There, He rewarded me by giving me an even better pair of shoes, although I was still naked otherwise.
Obviously, the first (and probably most) bizarre part of the dream is that I was naked but for the shoes. For two years now, I've wondered about that dream. None of it seemed to resolve itself before I left my job there--and so I wondered if it were one of those dreams that doesn't really "mean" anything after all. I have, however, had enough "significant" dreams to know this one felt like it mattered, so I've never really forgotten it.
Now, after a year of renewing my health, teaching my children from home, dis-associating myself from so many of the things that were outside endeavors...now I look at next year and wonder what my calling is to be. I am healthy again. I've released that "unhealthy agreement" with my inner self that made achievement the definition of my worth even as it wore me down to nothing. So now what? Suddenly, new options line up before me, and I feel paralyzed. One thing I know--I could easily slip back into a bad place, where I dread every day either due to outside stress or threats to my physical and/or emotional health. How do I know which door to open? I am enjoying the freedom from that unhealthy agreement. How do I know I won't slap my signature down on it again without even thinking about it?
So I prayed. I prayed a lot. I went looking for people to pray for me...asking online friends I haven't talked to for a while, stopping friends I run into at the grocery store and outlining my prayer need, even though I may not have seen them in months. I mean everybody got asked to pray for me. I wasn't proud. This really mattered to me.
One of those online friends came back with a willing response to my prayer request and with the following cryptic word from God: "I'm hearing 'follow the peace'." This was what he said in response to my question about how to decide between multiple opportunities, not the least of which is to simply continue another year as I am. His words settled my mind, sounded like God and gave me a feeling things were on track, but didn't actually resolve anything. I didn't expect them to. I've walked this road with God long enough to know He leads step by step, by hedging in a certain direction, not by making a complete picture of the destination magically appear.
Another day, two similar events and a scripture in Isaiah gelled to lead me to hear God saying: "Remember I go before you, and ask Me to send my angels before you, too, even as you move forward at a proper pace. They've had your back, but now they need to go before." Such reassurance, such guidance always awes me! As usual, I'm all the more certain God has actually spoken to me simply because of the profound thankfulness it stirs in my heart!
Finally, today I was reading Eldredge's Walking with God and came across a section that pointed out the "need to bring the work of Christ" between the self and organizations, leaders, former bosses. For him, it was a specific place with which he needed to renounce his spiritual ties. I think for me it is more general--not one specific job, but rather my reasons for working for pay, this entirely is infected with a lack of peace and joy. So I prayed Eldredge's prayer, visualizing myself as an employee at large where he specified a place--although I must admit I "saw" the last place I worked as I prayed it. I thought of all the places I've worked. I considered Eldredge's claim that religious pride can infect a spiritual workplace and can affect everyone working there. That "spirit" as it is given free reign on the property can follow people even after they leave the place if they don't resist it intentionally. Interesting. I can see the same being possible with intolerance. With white sepulchre righteousness. No wonder work has felt burdensome. I've worked under all the conditions I described. Have I carried that weight along with me regarding work? I've certainly not intentionally put all that junk aside. So I prayed along with Eldredge the prayer he wrote:
I bring the full work of my Lord Jesus Christ--his cross and shed blood, his resurrection and his life, his authority, rule, and dominion--between me and this place (for me "the work place" at large), and between me and all the people there. Its officers and leadership and my former boss. I sever all spiritual ties between us, and I cancel any claims the enemy is making to me now because of my time spent there. I come out from under their authority. I consecrate my calling and my gifting to God. I cleanse my calling and gifting with the blood of Jesus Christ, to be holy and pure and filled with the Spirit of God alone. I keep the work of Christ between us and forbid these ties to be reformed. In the name and the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Immediately--and I mean immediately--that dream came back along with a scripture and the message from my friend, Michael, about following the peace. Here is the scripture:
Eph 6:15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
The dream came back as finally, finally offering a first glimmer of linkage to real life. Now I know that whenever I experience this series of events, the thing about my place in it is this: I will be the one with feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. No wonder He said "follow the peace." He said it first to me, with the dream even before He repeated it through my friend, Michael. Even the repetition is a thing of God--as Joseph explained to Pharaoh so long ago. So while I don't know exactly what it all means, or how it will play out, I know this: I know it matters--matters enough that I had to wait two years to even begin to see it manifest in actual life; and when I follow this series of events prescribed in that dream the result for me will be: feet even more beautifully shod. How lovely to know now that it is about the gospel of peace! How wondrous to be led...
I had one a couple of years ago with profound enigmas. It went like this:
I was at work, and it was a place where I worked then but don't now.
Enigma #1: I was there completely naked, except for the shoes I wore. Even my dream self found this a little odd, but no one else in the dream seemed to notice my bareness. I went through a variety of school-related activities, choosing curriculum with another teacher, wandering the halls, supervising things.
Enigma #2: at one point, I was offered a fabulous blue satin gown to wear, and it would indeed have covered my bareness, but I knew it was too fanciful for me to function properly while wearing it, and seeing that no one really noticed that I was naked anyway--I opted to remain unclothed. After that, I no longer paid any attention to my lack of attire.
Enigma #3: After a bit longer, I went toward a back door where I saw through a window that one of the portable buildings (the one that has housed High School Spanish and History classes) suddenly experienced an earthquake that upended it and dropped the Spanish side of it deep underground. Like the Titanic sinking, it tipped and dropped into the earth. I ran to find the high school secretary, searching for her on the playground which now housed a pavilion that wasn't there before. What's more, a lot more shade covered the grassy area than I remembered. These things struck me as differences from what I expected, but my main objective was to find the secretary, so I resumed my search for her. When I found her, though, she was too preoccupied with her concern for a young woman to get involved in the earthquake dilemma. So I went back to the offices of the main building and told them what I'd seen: "There was an earthquake out back and one of the portables is upended, surely demolished."
Enigma #4: Their response. The consensus in the main building was that if the earthquake didn't affect the permanent structure--that being the main building--then surely it wasn't that serious an issue, and no one went to investigate the woeful temporary structures on the edge of the woods. I was grieved that I could not convince anyone to take the situation seriously, but went on with my day, which took me to the school library.
Enigma #5: There I met God, who told me He was pleased that I announced what I saw, no matter what the response was. There, He rewarded me by giving me an even better pair of shoes, although I was still naked otherwise.
Obviously, the first (and probably most) bizarre part of the dream is that I was naked but for the shoes. For two years now, I've wondered about that dream. None of it seemed to resolve itself before I left my job there--and so I wondered if it were one of those dreams that doesn't really "mean" anything after all. I have, however, had enough "significant" dreams to know this one felt like it mattered, so I've never really forgotten it.
Now, after a year of renewing my health, teaching my children from home, dis-associating myself from so many of the things that were outside endeavors...now I look at next year and wonder what my calling is to be. I am healthy again. I've released that "unhealthy agreement" with my inner self that made achievement the definition of my worth even as it wore me down to nothing. So now what? Suddenly, new options line up before me, and I feel paralyzed. One thing I know--I could easily slip back into a bad place, where I dread every day either due to outside stress or threats to my physical and/or emotional health. How do I know which door to open? I am enjoying the freedom from that unhealthy agreement. How do I know I won't slap my signature down on it again without even thinking about it?
So I prayed. I prayed a lot. I went looking for people to pray for me...asking online friends I haven't talked to for a while, stopping friends I run into at the grocery store and outlining my prayer need, even though I may not have seen them in months. I mean everybody got asked to pray for me. I wasn't proud. This really mattered to me.
One of those online friends came back with a willing response to my prayer request and with the following cryptic word from God: "I'm hearing 'follow the peace'." This was what he said in response to my question about how to decide between multiple opportunities, not the least of which is to simply continue another year as I am. His words settled my mind, sounded like God and gave me a feeling things were on track, but didn't actually resolve anything. I didn't expect them to. I've walked this road with God long enough to know He leads step by step, by hedging in a certain direction, not by making a complete picture of the destination magically appear.
Another day, two similar events and a scripture in Isaiah gelled to lead me to hear God saying: "Remember I go before you, and ask Me to send my angels before you, too, even as you move forward at a proper pace. They've had your back, but now they need to go before." Such reassurance, such guidance always awes me! As usual, I'm all the more certain God has actually spoken to me simply because of the profound thankfulness it stirs in my heart!
Finally, today I was reading Eldredge's Walking with God and came across a section that pointed out the "need to bring the work of Christ" between the self and organizations, leaders, former bosses. For him, it was a specific place with which he needed to renounce his spiritual ties. I think for me it is more general--not one specific job, but rather my reasons for working for pay, this entirely is infected with a lack of peace and joy. So I prayed Eldredge's prayer, visualizing myself as an employee at large where he specified a place--although I must admit I "saw" the last place I worked as I prayed it. I thought of all the places I've worked. I considered Eldredge's claim that religious pride can infect a spiritual workplace and can affect everyone working there. That "spirit" as it is given free reign on the property can follow people even after they leave the place if they don't resist it intentionally. Interesting. I can see the same being possible with intolerance. With white sepulchre righteousness. No wonder work has felt burdensome. I've worked under all the conditions I described. Have I carried that weight along with me regarding work? I've certainly not intentionally put all that junk aside. So I prayed along with Eldredge the prayer he wrote:
I bring the full work of my Lord Jesus Christ--his cross and shed blood, his resurrection and his life, his authority, rule, and dominion--between me and this place (for me "the work place" at large), and between me and all the people there. Its officers and leadership and my former boss. I sever all spiritual ties between us, and I cancel any claims the enemy is making to me now because of my time spent there. I come out from under their authority. I consecrate my calling and my gifting to God. I cleanse my calling and gifting with the blood of Jesus Christ, to be holy and pure and filled with the Spirit of God alone. I keep the work of Christ between us and forbid these ties to be reformed. In the name and the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Immediately--and I mean immediately--that dream came back along with a scripture and the message from my friend, Michael, about following the peace. Here is the scripture:
Eph 6:15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
The dream came back as finally, finally offering a first glimmer of linkage to real life. Now I know that whenever I experience this series of events, the thing about my place in it is this: I will be the one with feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. No wonder He said "follow the peace." He said it first to me, with the dream even before He repeated it through my friend, Michael. Even the repetition is a thing of God--as Joseph explained to Pharaoh so long ago. So while I don't know exactly what it all means, or how it will play out, I know this: I know it matters--matters enough that I had to wait two years to even begin to see it manifest in actual life; and when I follow this series of events prescribed in that dream the result for me will be: feet even more beautifully shod. How lovely to know now that it is about the gospel of peace! How wondrous to be led...
cantus firmus
For those who are not musicians and might ask what is cantus firmus, Wikipedia defines it thus:
"In music, a cantus firmus ("fixed song") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition."
"In music, a cantus firmus ("fixed song") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition."
Or, even more plainly stated:
"The tune of the cantus firmus was taken from Gregorian chant; it would move very slowly underneath more rapid vocal or instrumental lines above it."
A musical textbook for form and analysis uses the work "Poplars in Spring" to give a visual analogy to the musical form concept:
"The poplar's trunk (detail to left) unites the ground to leafy canopy and sky above. The tree is analogous to a preexisting melody stitching the elements of a composition together. In music, we call this melody a cantus firmus. "So why am I thinking about this now? It strikes me that it bears much similarity to my walk of faith these last few years. A place deep inside me hears that plainsong, that chant that is the core of my reason for being and being uniquely me. The more profound that trunk of revelation, the more it can get lost in an awful lot of branchwork. How many layers of counterpoint can God paint into my life before I utterly lose track of the foundational melody? It seems to be the question my life is about right now.
What's more, that form can be more broadly viewed as transitioning between A and B segments in a variety of arrangements. The textbook continues to draw analogies between the painting and the musical form: "Monet's detail to the right might be considered a binary, with sky at the top being part "A" and leaves at the bottom being part "B." The Lutheran chorale typically subscribes to an extended binary in which section "A" (called the Stollen) is repeated and followed by a section "B" (the Abgesang) which is not repeated. This AAB schematic is known as German bar form."
Here we get to the heart of the matter. My life does indeed feel like it glides through German bar form...with me being called to believe right now that the repeat of section A is closing and that section B will indeed commence. How will I receive the beginning of the Abgesang? Will I even believe that the Stollen could ever end? Or to use the painting's analogy, after my eyes climb 2/3 of the piece seeing branches, will they accept the trunk in a bare sky for the top of the work?
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Once More, the Spider and the Lizard...
Almost a year ago, I posted this:
http://sdmen.blogspot.com/2008/06/spider-takes-shape-and-then-takes-shape.html
Now, strangely, I find a meaning attaches the spider and the lizard to each other that I hadn't seen before, the thing that makes them common to each other: both can seemingly defy the laws of gravity by their design. And so they can climb walls where other creatures can't, see things others can't, go places others can't. It seems such a small obvious point. And yet, it seems a great secret, too.
http://sdmen.blogspot.com/2008/06/spider-takes-shape-and-then-takes-shape.html
Now, strangely, I find a meaning attaches the spider and the lizard to each other that I hadn't seen before, the thing that makes them common to each other: both can seemingly defy the laws of gravity by their design. And so they can climb walls where other creatures can't, see things others can't, go places others can't. It seems such a small obvious point. And yet, it seems a great secret, too.
What Dreams Are Made of...
I have ones sometimes that feel like more than the flotsam of the sleeping mind. Friends of mine know it. Some have even benefited from this type of dream when I have it of/for them, but lately the dreams loom larger tham my own life and my own circle of friends. I'm trying to grow bolder about sharing the ones that feel larger than my own little story as a blade of grass on the face of the earth. This is one of those dreams.
I should say first that I had a related one a few years ago, had it before the one that looms large in my mind right now. In the earlier one, I was assigned by God the task of visiting many churches. I was sent to check the foam level on the floor. After completing this assignment, I reported back to God that the foam was dissipating and somehow my dream-self knew this was a good thing. Even by the time I had that dream, I knew to look to God for an explanation for the dream's more bizarre elements, and so I wasn't surprised when I learned scripture explains that foam in a little instructional passage from the book of Jude:
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
The foam of unrecognized shame in the self-serving. Not surprising to have this dream--we're a pretty foamy nation by that definition.
I mention that dream because the other one alsohad that foam in it. I dreamed I was in a church that was a labyrinth of stone-walled rooms. I was invited there by a real-life friend (Pennye) whose Chiristian fiber I greatly respect in actual life. But while her dream-self was away from me, busy with other tasks, there suddenly began a great war. And Pagan witches and warlocks joined Rainbow people and followers of Native American religions. All came together to fight against a common enemy. Their purpose was to reveal what ended up being sleeping pigs stuck in frozen foam. It all happened in the dark of night there in that stoneblock church. The pigs had been virtually invisible before these ambiguous armies came to bear upon them. The dream felt significant when I had it--one of those that colored the days that followed it with a weightiness of anticipation; but as is often the case, the dream moved to a shadowy place in my mind as time passed and days and days of waking life happened. Years of waking life happened.
Last week, though, I read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," and today I saw Avatar. Was it my experience of these two in such close proximity that brought the dream crashing back on me full force for the first time in years? Now my heart swells, caught up to see this: a Story has been given for the telling, given and faithfully told in quadrants unexpected--and for what purpose? So that the sleeping pigs (do you know what pigs represent in Christian religious symbolism?) will be made visible in their foam coccoons--whereas before they were able to maintain their invisibility.
This verse comes back to haunt the dream in even greater definition as I've been exposed to these two bits of story-telling: For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation...What greater condemnation would reveal a shame-locked pig than for it to discover that the very ones it cast stones at are better at telling the Great Story than it is...Don't you know God could raise up sons of Abraham from these stones on the ground?!?Jesus cried it out, but we are sleepy and forgetful, and foam cushions us against discomfort.
Yet God in His wisdom sees that we experience it anyway, like herds of happy sheep, never deeply comprehending what we're learning from this One of Highest Perspective; and so it should be, else our prejudices might get in the way of His more significant instruction. I think it is obvious, He is not finished with parables yet. So...
How did that dream end? I believe I remember the pigs being put on a cart that rolls away, though not by the work of human hands--but I'm not sure of all that. I'd have to retrieve dream notes from pretty far back to see what I recorded. This, though, I do remember with certainty: those who remain at the end of the Battle to Reveal the Pigs pause for just a bit, uncertain when the pigs are gone. They wonder what they are now called to do and who they are to be in this place. And, they wonder how to feel about each other in the aftermath of this strange war.
Is it strange to feel called to pray for dream people? Whether it is or not, I feel called to pray for these ones who wait at the end, wait to learn what to do, who to be. I pray for these ones who wait to decide what to believe once they learn that the church doesn't have to be a place to hide pigs any more...
I should say first that I had a related one a few years ago, had it before the one that looms large in my mind right now. In the earlier one, I was assigned by God the task of visiting many churches. I was sent to check the foam level on the floor. After completing this assignment, I reported back to God that the foam was dissipating and somehow my dream-self knew this was a good thing. Even by the time I had that dream, I knew to look to God for an explanation for the dream's more bizarre elements, and so I wasn't surprised when I learned scripture explains that foam in a little instructional passage from the book of Jude:
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
The foam of unrecognized shame in the self-serving. Not surprising to have this dream--we're a pretty foamy nation by that definition.
I mention that dream because the other one alsohad that foam in it. I dreamed I was in a church that was a labyrinth of stone-walled rooms. I was invited there by a real-life friend (Pennye) whose Chiristian fiber I greatly respect in actual life. But while her dream-self was away from me, busy with other tasks, there suddenly began a great war. And Pagan witches and warlocks joined Rainbow people and followers of Native American religions. All came together to fight against a common enemy. Their purpose was to reveal what ended up being sleeping pigs stuck in frozen foam. It all happened in the dark of night there in that stoneblock church. The pigs had been virtually invisible before these ambiguous armies came to bear upon them. The dream felt significant when I had it--one of those that colored the days that followed it with a weightiness of anticipation; but as is often the case, the dream moved to a shadowy place in my mind as time passed and days and days of waking life happened. Years of waking life happened.
Last week, though, I read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," and today I saw Avatar. Was it my experience of these two in such close proximity that brought the dream crashing back on me full force for the first time in years? Now my heart swells, caught up to see this: a Story has been given for the telling, given and faithfully told in quadrants unexpected--and for what purpose? So that the sleeping pigs (do you know what pigs represent in Christian religious symbolism?) will be made visible in their foam coccoons--whereas before they were able to maintain their invisibility.
This verse comes back to haunt the dream in even greater definition as I've been exposed to these two bits of story-telling: For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation...What greater condemnation would reveal a shame-locked pig than for it to discover that the very ones it cast stones at are better at telling the Great Story than it is...Don't you know God could raise up sons of Abraham from these stones on the ground?!?Jesus cried it out, but we are sleepy and forgetful, and foam cushions us against discomfort.
Yet God in His wisdom sees that we experience it anyway, like herds of happy sheep, never deeply comprehending what we're learning from this One of Highest Perspective; and so it should be, else our prejudices might get in the way of His more significant instruction. I think it is obvious, He is not finished with parables yet. So...
How did that dream end? I believe I remember the pigs being put on a cart that rolls away, though not by the work of human hands--but I'm not sure of all that. I'd have to retrieve dream notes from pretty far back to see what I recorded. This, though, I do remember with certainty: those who remain at the end of the Battle to Reveal the Pigs pause for just a bit, uncertain when the pigs are gone. They wonder what they are now called to do and who they are to be in this place. And, they wonder how to feel about each other in the aftermath of this strange war.
Is it strange to feel called to pray for dream people? Whether it is or not, I feel called to pray for these ones who wait at the end, wait to learn what to do, who to be. I pray for these ones who wait to decide what to believe once they learn that the church doesn't have to be a place to hide pigs any more...
The Unexamined Life...
...only in this case, the reference does not lead to the more common corrective axiom. Oswald Chambers claims that good can be the enemy of the best, so dare I pause in this busy life to take this challenge: how much good do I do just to have my life "examined" by others and marked as well-lived? How hard do I work to earn the recognition of a few carefully screened peers? Do I deceive myself, thinking I have noble aims when I strive to be "made all things to all [men], that I might by all means save some..." when really I'm simply working to "save" a self-image? How often is this the case? To consider such a thing is a daunting form of self-examination; nevertheless, it is the lonely, barren road that You've called me to spend a season traveling.
And Your teaching methods--they are so mysterious and unlike much of what I've been taught to call education; yet I must admit, they are masterful in their effectiveness. I remember that when I was a child, I told my mother I would grow up to be famous, and she laughed at me, and I was offended. Now, I am grown and living as my own opposite, but still living for the same dying motive that drove me as a child. I see myself resonate with the characted in "Good Will Hunting" who seeks the antithesis of fame, desires an annonymous life and calls it noble, but for all the wrong reasons: more for control than for humility. Mostly he just wants to manage what set of humanity has the power--or even enough information--to judge his life's value. I learned I'm like him.
And so You isolated me. For my own good You locked me up with You and You alone. Starting almost a year ago, You set me apart. In fact, I dreamed You put me in a rocky pit that was mysteriously full of light where I sat in its dry depths, though darkness was above at the mouth of the well all was light below. I can tell You now, tell You what You were trying to draw out from my soul with that dream. I am "there" now and ready to answer the question, the final examination for this "class" You had me take.
The exam is one question: What is this pit that has light at its depth but not at its mouth? This pit of invisibility does indeed have light at its depth when all the visible world above is dark, and its light is its hidden beauty. Shall I cite my resources? In the words of the celebrated:
"There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there."--Indira Gandhi
"Don't mistake anonymous for unnecessary."--Charles Swindoll
And the motherlode:
"In fact, some of the parts that seem weakest and least important are really the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect from the eyes of others those parts that should not be seen, while other parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together in such a way that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other equally--I Cor. 12:22-25
So often You teach me according to this same pattern: it starts with a mysterious hook in a dream or a quirky life redundnacy that poses a seemingly absurd question. Then comes the long trial of faith where none of the life-pieces fit together with any rational, emotional or spiritual meaning. Finally comes the unveiling of rightness and holy logic. I arrive yet again at the breath-taking wisdom and depth of purpose that keep me on my knees in this relationship of Ours. I am ever cycling through Your teaching like I march through the seasons of this world-age.
At last, I have arrived at that time for resting peacefully under the snow; but soon this soil will break open in the warmth of another spring. What have I learned? The richest soil--and the soil You most applaud in parable--is the soil best hidden by the abundance of life that blankets it...
And Your teaching methods--they are so mysterious and unlike much of what I've been taught to call education; yet I must admit, they are masterful in their effectiveness. I remember that when I was a child, I told my mother I would grow up to be famous, and she laughed at me, and I was offended. Now, I am grown and living as my own opposite, but still living for the same dying motive that drove me as a child. I see myself resonate with the characted in "Good Will Hunting" who seeks the antithesis of fame, desires an annonymous life and calls it noble, but for all the wrong reasons: more for control than for humility. Mostly he just wants to manage what set of humanity has the power--or even enough information--to judge his life's value. I learned I'm like him.
And so You isolated me. For my own good You locked me up with You and You alone. Starting almost a year ago, You set me apart. In fact, I dreamed You put me in a rocky pit that was mysteriously full of light where I sat in its dry depths, though darkness was above at the mouth of the well all was light below. I can tell You now, tell You what You were trying to draw out from my soul with that dream. I am "there" now and ready to answer the question, the final examination for this "class" You had me take.
The exam is one question: What is this pit that has light at its depth but not at its mouth? This pit of invisibility does indeed have light at its depth when all the visible world above is dark, and its light is its hidden beauty. Shall I cite my resources? In the words of the celebrated:
"There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there."--Indira Gandhi
"Don't mistake anonymous for unnecessary."--Charles Swindoll
And the motherlode:
"In fact, some of the parts that seem weakest and least important are really the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect from the eyes of others those parts that should not be seen, while other parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together in such a way that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other equally--I Cor. 12:22-25
So often You teach me according to this same pattern: it starts with a mysterious hook in a dream or a quirky life redundnacy that poses a seemingly absurd question. Then comes the long trial of faith where none of the life-pieces fit together with any rational, emotional or spiritual meaning. Finally comes the unveiling of rightness and holy logic. I arrive yet again at the breath-taking wisdom and depth of purpose that keep me on my knees in this relationship of Ours. I am ever cycling through Your teaching like I march through the seasons of this world-age.
At last, I have arrived at that time for resting peacefully under the snow; but soon this soil will break open in the warmth of another spring. What have I learned? The richest soil--and the soil You most applaud in parable--is the soil best hidden by the abundance of life that blankets it...
Saturday, January 30, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
My Christmas Gift from God...
Last year, I felt like You gave me a birthday gift--a gift of cherry blossoms everywhere--and the beauty and elegance and appropriateness of that gift warmed my heart through the cold winter months.
So, as Advent ensued, I wondered if I'd again receive a gift--this time a Christmas gift--from Thee. I told myself things like--a person doesn't give out gifts on His own birthday, but still I felt a thrill of anticipation. I told myself that if the gift I received were the gift of Your Presence, then the most fitting thing to do with it would be to ask that You pass over me and give it instead to someone else who has not experienced such a thing as the wonder of that Presence. I told myself that if You asked how I'd work such a re-gifting moment, I thought first of my husband, who works so hard to make my life a little easier this year. He works both a full time and a part time job that I might take the year off from full-time work, recovering some of the physical strength that has been slowly depleted these last few years, but his own strength is depleted in the process. Always, that price to be paid. I prayed that he might receive some gift of deeper communion with You and rest for his soul, that he might catch a sense of Your nearness without the sacrifice or heartbreak that seem to often accompany such a moment...I pray that for all of us--even though I know to pray for paradise on earth for now reaches beyond the spiritual realm's brand of physics. Still, as long as we're wishing...
I felt like You responded with a glance at Solomon--a reminder that if I should ask for the good of others and not myself, You'd give me that and more--Your Presence for me as well. You gave me a reminder that Your stores are like candle-light. For one candle to share its light means it gives another candle the full measure of its glow without itself being diminished in the least. Such is the limitlessness of the storehouse of Your Presence, and I need not sacrifice that treasure so that another can have his share, to do so cheapens grace--and who can measure the depths of Your real treasures anyway? It is blindness to try. Deafness to barter. Illiteracy to count. I simply rested in silent anticipation as the snows began to fall.
The days until Christmas dwindled, and I told myself it might be a last minute gift You'd give...such is a common principle of gifts given by grace and received by faith--most likely it would appear as something quirky and out of place, or else as something redundantly presenting itself to me again and again...and would I feel Your Presence when it came? It had been long enough since I'd felt that sort of nearness to You that I'd begun to look back over old writings I'd done at those "special times" just to recapture the "feel" of it. And Christmas drew even nearer.
Three times--once per day on the 23rd, 24th, and the 25th--I did find that divine redundancy crept into my celebrations. Three times, almost back-to-back I heard and/or sang O HOLY NIGHT. The first was at a humble little church service during a precious sharing of the Gospel. The second was at a lavish Christmas Eve service where excellence reigned supreme and no expense was spared to celebrate the night of Your birth. The third was Christmas morning on TV--the broadcast of the Disney Christmas Parade. Yanni's Voices performed it. The song was Your gift, but the night before--at the Christmas Eve service--I'd had that moment of Your Presence, and so I thought that was "the gift" and so it was, but hearing the song yet again Christmas morning made me think, "You know, I don't think I've ever had that song present itself to me so often right at Christmastime-proper. Carols yes, but not that one in particular." Such an impression often constitutes my unwrapping of Your gifts like the flowers and the song. (You're such a romantic, aren't You?) But first, the gift of Your Presence begs description.
How do I describe it? Much like light and warmth, sometimes the best description involves measuring the absence as well as the presence of it. Your Presence has at times been an aroma that filled every room of my life, but lately (the last few years) it has been more a thing I just catch a hint of here and there. Oh, I still see Your leading and sense Your humor and interpret Your purposes, but that Presence--it is a gift that comes and goes like the wind, say the prophets, and they're right. I can't contrive it; I can't demand it. At best, I can simply revel in it when it comes, and it came Christmas Eve. What does that Presence bring with it, in human terms? Well-being is a word that comes to mind. Satisfaction and joy outside the brackets of ambition or even of time, these, too, come to mind. A contentment with things as they are no matter how they are because all things of pain will ultimately fall away (to know this deeply and certainly) comes to mind. Yet strangely this contentment is paired with a quintessential advent ache, a joyous grasping for something as yet unseen and nearly unknown, yet called for with a longing that swells the breast and draws the arms up like the arms of a baby who knows she's about to be held by her mother. This is the effect of the Presence, and I had it the whole of Christmas Eve and much of Christmas Day, although laced with a little grief Christmas Day, I know not why.
Christmas Eve at that service I felt a picture form in my mind--as it had been times before when Your Presence visited me, drawing me to the Cross and once to a fountain of glittering ruby waters that were as the blood of Communion for me with Thee--these were past visions granted by Your Presence. Now came another in which I saw myself approach the place of Your birth. I wore the white robe You'd wrapped around me. It slid over my bare feet and ankles, moving as I walked, pulsing with a sheen as it caught the starlight where my feet fluttered the hem of it--time is of no consequence in these visions as You are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, though You were but new-born, the robe You would put around me was mine already in promise and the only fitting thing for me to wear at such a moment.
My thoughts turned to Mary. If she indeed was a 14-year-old--as legend tells--when You came into her life, then she was the age my middle child is now. I imagined what I would do to help one that age deliver a baby when in a strange place and experiencing something so new as the birth of a first child. I felt myself cradle her head in my lap, as Joseph helped her deliver You. I prayed for her peace. I prayed for her to know the joy of such a moment, the blessings hidden beneath the dire circumstances that might try to rob her of her bliss. Then I saw You in a manger, felt the softness of your just-born cheek with the knuckles of my hand--hating to even run my fingers against your face for fear the roughness of my work-worn hands would be painful. I did not wish to be one of the first pains to Your soft cheek, but how else would I caress You? I thought how strange that in this world comfort and pain are flesh of each other's flesh and how the only way to have one purely is to take both.
Then I thought how if Mary were indeed 14 when these events occurred, then she was likewise near my age now when You died. I leapt through time to see her then. I embraced her yet again, but here our roles were almost reversed--she giving the comfort of one experienced with suffering while I was the one looking into the unknown and wondering what my tomorrow holds. The daydream ended, and the church service rose again in prominence in my conscious mind, but I stored it to ponder as all treasures should be pondered.
Since Christmas Day, I've studied on this carol--the gift above and beyond Your Presence--and what it could mean that You would give it to me. Quickly, I discovered that if a song was what You would give me, then this is the perfect carol for You to choose. I've also learned why Yanni was the ideal performer. I hardly need look very far back across these blogs to see the promise You've made for my musical compositions. Specifically, You've promised this will be a next-phase of ministry for me. For a long time, I've hesitated from seeking publication due to my lack of training in composition. To reassure me, You not only gave me a friend with a vision of my gift perfectly formed to feed others (a friend who incidentally figured prominently into that first presentation of the song on the night of the 23rd) but You also gave me Yanni as a performer--a musician who had no formal training and could not read a note, yet who is a Grammy-winning instrumental composer in this day--a reminder of what "can be" whether formal training is involved or not.
And the carol itself has an interesting back story. Not always has it been the carol that all the soloists long to be chosen to sing as their churches gleam in the candle light of Christmas Eve services. No, I learned it endured quite a "shameful" period in its early days. (I learned of this at the website: hymnsandcarolsofChristmas.com.) This was a hymn that during its infancy was loved briefly by the public, but was swiftly "attacked by churchmen in [the lyricist's] native France" with one french bishop denouncing its "lack of musical taste and total absence of the spirit of religion." This flare of offense taken by the church is a mystery to us now, but is easily understood when consideration is given to the other attributing factors, ones that were outside the hymn's doctrinal truth or melodic beauty. The church saw words written by a lyricist who was classified as "a social radical, a freethinker, a socialist and a non-Christian. Indeed he adopted some of the more extreme social and political views of his era, such as opposition to inequality, slavery, injustice and other kinds of oppression." The church also saw a melody written by a musical composer who was more prominently known for composing "light operatic works and ballets." These factors were "deemed incompatible by those churchmen with the composition of a Christian religious song." I can hardly condemn them. Was I not myself just chided for taking measure of the treasure? Christ Himself warned us about mis-classifying the sanctifying agent when comparing the sacrifice to the altar that bears it, but that is a lesser lesson to the one of the song's glory. The glory is that the message of this song rose above politics and reputations, and just over 150 years later, when that generation had turned to dust--when the words and the music could stand on their own merit and when the only reputation involved in its publicity was the reputation of its subject, well that's when the song became a cornerstone carol of the season. Of all carols, this one strikes me as having a history, a life-story that matches the life-story of its subject more fully than any other I've found.
So what did You give me for Christmas? You gave my Yourself, played out again in song and story even as time spun itself into the darkness of the world's winter solstice. And, You gave me the reassurance of the approaching labor and delivery of my own song, one both for and from Thee. As always, Your gift was nothing short of sublime.
So, as Advent ensued, I wondered if I'd again receive a gift--this time a Christmas gift--from Thee. I told myself things like--a person doesn't give out gifts on His own birthday, but still I felt a thrill of anticipation. I told myself that if the gift I received were the gift of Your Presence, then the most fitting thing to do with it would be to ask that You pass over me and give it instead to someone else who has not experienced such a thing as the wonder of that Presence. I told myself that if You asked how I'd work such a re-gifting moment, I thought first of my husband, who works so hard to make my life a little easier this year. He works both a full time and a part time job that I might take the year off from full-time work, recovering some of the physical strength that has been slowly depleted these last few years, but his own strength is depleted in the process. Always, that price to be paid. I prayed that he might receive some gift of deeper communion with You and rest for his soul, that he might catch a sense of Your nearness without the sacrifice or heartbreak that seem to often accompany such a moment...I pray that for all of us--even though I know to pray for paradise on earth for now reaches beyond the spiritual realm's brand of physics. Still, as long as we're wishing...
I felt like You responded with a glance at Solomon--a reminder that if I should ask for the good of others and not myself, You'd give me that and more--Your Presence for me as well. You gave me a reminder that Your stores are like candle-light. For one candle to share its light means it gives another candle the full measure of its glow without itself being diminished in the least. Such is the limitlessness of the storehouse of Your Presence, and I need not sacrifice that treasure so that another can have his share, to do so cheapens grace--and who can measure the depths of Your real treasures anyway? It is blindness to try. Deafness to barter. Illiteracy to count. I simply rested in silent anticipation as the snows began to fall.
The days until Christmas dwindled, and I told myself it might be a last minute gift You'd give...such is a common principle of gifts given by grace and received by faith--most likely it would appear as something quirky and out of place, or else as something redundantly presenting itself to me again and again...and would I feel Your Presence when it came? It had been long enough since I'd felt that sort of nearness to You that I'd begun to look back over old writings I'd done at those "special times" just to recapture the "feel" of it. And Christmas drew even nearer.
Three times--once per day on the 23rd, 24th, and the 25th--I did find that divine redundancy crept into my celebrations. Three times, almost back-to-back I heard and/or sang O HOLY NIGHT. The first was at a humble little church service during a precious sharing of the Gospel. The second was at a lavish Christmas Eve service where excellence reigned supreme and no expense was spared to celebrate the night of Your birth. The third was Christmas morning on TV--the broadcast of the Disney Christmas Parade. Yanni's Voices performed it. The song was Your gift, but the night before--at the Christmas Eve service--I'd had that moment of Your Presence, and so I thought that was "the gift" and so it was, but hearing the song yet again Christmas morning made me think, "You know, I don't think I've ever had that song present itself to me so often right at Christmastime-proper. Carols yes, but not that one in particular." Such an impression often constitutes my unwrapping of Your gifts like the flowers and the song. (You're such a romantic, aren't You?) But first, the gift of Your Presence begs description.
How do I describe it? Much like light and warmth, sometimes the best description involves measuring the absence as well as the presence of it. Your Presence has at times been an aroma that filled every room of my life, but lately (the last few years) it has been more a thing I just catch a hint of here and there. Oh, I still see Your leading and sense Your humor and interpret Your purposes, but that Presence--it is a gift that comes and goes like the wind, say the prophets, and they're right. I can't contrive it; I can't demand it. At best, I can simply revel in it when it comes, and it came Christmas Eve. What does that Presence bring with it, in human terms? Well-being is a word that comes to mind. Satisfaction and joy outside the brackets of ambition or even of time, these, too, come to mind. A contentment with things as they are no matter how they are because all things of pain will ultimately fall away (to know this deeply and certainly) comes to mind. Yet strangely this contentment is paired with a quintessential advent ache, a joyous grasping for something as yet unseen and nearly unknown, yet called for with a longing that swells the breast and draws the arms up like the arms of a baby who knows she's about to be held by her mother. This is the effect of the Presence, and I had it the whole of Christmas Eve and much of Christmas Day, although laced with a little grief Christmas Day, I know not why.
Christmas Eve at that service I felt a picture form in my mind--as it had been times before when Your Presence visited me, drawing me to the Cross and once to a fountain of glittering ruby waters that were as the blood of Communion for me with Thee--these were past visions granted by Your Presence. Now came another in which I saw myself approach the place of Your birth. I wore the white robe You'd wrapped around me. It slid over my bare feet and ankles, moving as I walked, pulsing with a sheen as it caught the starlight where my feet fluttered the hem of it--time is of no consequence in these visions as You are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, though You were but new-born, the robe You would put around me was mine already in promise and the only fitting thing for me to wear at such a moment.
My thoughts turned to Mary. If she indeed was a 14-year-old--as legend tells--when You came into her life, then she was the age my middle child is now. I imagined what I would do to help one that age deliver a baby when in a strange place and experiencing something so new as the birth of a first child. I felt myself cradle her head in my lap, as Joseph helped her deliver You. I prayed for her peace. I prayed for her to know the joy of such a moment, the blessings hidden beneath the dire circumstances that might try to rob her of her bliss. Then I saw You in a manger, felt the softness of your just-born cheek with the knuckles of my hand--hating to even run my fingers against your face for fear the roughness of my work-worn hands would be painful. I did not wish to be one of the first pains to Your soft cheek, but how else would I caress You? I thought how strange that in this world comfort and pain are flesh of each other's flesh and how the only way to have one purely is to take both.
Then I thought how if Mary were indeed 14 when these events occurred, then she was likewise near my age now when You died. I leapt through time to see her then. I embraced her yet again, but here our roles were almost reversed--she giving the comfort of one experienced with suffering while I was the one looking into the unknown and wondering what my tomorrow holds. The daydream ended, and the church service rose again in prominence in my conscious mind, but I stored it to ponder as all treasures should be pondered.
Since Christmas Day, I've studied on this carol--the gift above and beyond Your Presence--and what it could mean that You would give it to me. Quickly, I discovered that if a song was what You would give me, then this is the perfect carol for You to choose. I've also learned why Yanni was the ideal performer. I hardly need look very far back across these blogs to see the promise You've made for my musical compositions. Specifically, You've promised this will be a next-phase of ministry for me. For a long time, I've hesitated from seeking publication due to my lack of training in composition. To reassure me, You not only gave me a friend with a vision of my gift perfectly formed to feed others (a friend who incidentally figured prominently into that first presentation of the song on the night of the 23rd) but You also gave me Yanni as a performer--a musician who had no formal training and could not read a note, yet who is a Grammy-winning instrumental composer in this day--a reminder of what "can be" whether formal training is involved or not.
And the carol itself has an interesting back story. Not always has it been the carol that all the soloists long to be chosen to sing as their churches gleam in the candle light of Christmas Eve services. No, I learned it endured quite a "shameful" period in its early days. (I learned of this at the website: hymnsandcarolsofChristmas.com.) This was a hymn that during its infancy was loved briefly by the public, but was swiftly "attacked by churchmen in [the lyricist's] native France" with one french bishop denouncing its "lack of musical taste and total absence of the spirit of religion." This flare of offense taken by the church is a mystery to us now, but is easily understood when consideration is given to the other attributing factors, ones that were outside the hymn's doctrinal truth or melodic beauty. The church saw words written by a lyricist who was classified as "a social radical, a freethinker, a socialist and a non-Christian. Indeed he adopted some of the more extreme social and political views of his era, such as opposition to inequality, slavery, injustice and other kinds of oppression." The church also saw a melody written by a musical composer who was more prominently known for composing "light operatic works and ballets." These factors were "deemed incompatible by those churchmen with the composition of a Christian religious song." I can hardly condemn them. Was I not myself just chided for taking measure of the treasure? Christ Himself warned us about mis-classifying the sanctifying agent when comparing the sacrifice to the altar that bears it, but that is a lesser lesson to the one of the song's glory. The glory is that the message of this song rose above politics and reputations, and just over 150 years later, when that generation had turned to dust--when the words and the music could stand on their own merit and when the only reputation involved in its publicity was the reputation of its subject, well that's when the song became a cornerstone carol of the season. Of all carols, this one strikes me as having a history, a life-story that matches the life-story of its subject more fully than any other I've found.
So what did You give me for Christmas? You gave my Yourself, played out again in song and story even as time spun itself into the darkness of the world's winter solstice. And, You gave me the reassurance of the approaching labor and delivery of my own song, one both for and from Thee. As always, Your gift was nothing short of sublime.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
the cursing of the scapegoat...the Crystal Spectre, part III
Strange the way confirmation You give confirmation to the conversations You have with Your people--confirmation that You really are a part of the dialogue.
After having had that last dream, the very same day in fact, I mentioned to a friend something I hoped she'd raise in prayer with me. She began to get a vision during that prayer, and she shared it with me. I hadn't told her about this Crystal Spectre series of dreams, but here is what she saw: she saw an ear of corn beautifully formed, but surrounded by a rotting dead husk. The rotting husk on it would fall away by the prayers of people who knew of it. When the dead husk was stripped away, what was underneath would be exposed: a golden ear of corn, fine and glowing--not a thing needing to be grown or developed like a seed, but fully formed and ready to be revealed. I spent the rest of the day stunned at the imagery parallels between her prayer vision and my morning's dream. Her vision was in response to my search for a practical application in my everyday life to the more fantastic elements of my dream, her vision lifted into that other realm to meet mine. While mine was literally in the air and full of rainbow-promises, hers was in the earth, growing grain--growing nourishment. What an amazing bridge of wisdom I see as I look for the cords that bind the vision and the reality together.
So I entered the last dream that felt related, although the Spectre made no appearance--this dream was, while fantastic, still in the realm of mankind. My memory of the early part is sketchy, only that things were chaotic for people but they got a handle on things and improved them a bit, bringing relief. But the relief was short-lived, and the second period of chaos and confusion did not get any better. People were running around in a panic everywhere. I moved through the crowd until I saw a church. I decided to go into it and pray. When I did, a priest saw me. He pointed me out, told everyone else in the church to think evil of me, and using something like a rosary that he wrapped around my head, he pushed me to the floor. He held me down by the cord he had wrapped around my head--and pressing my head into the floor, he began to curse me. As he cursed in a language I did not understand, I found myself beginning to spin, as if my head were attached to a spinner that swung my body around in a circle, fast enough that my feet left the floor--yet strangely he stayed positioned just above me, holding my head in place. As he cursed and I spun, I began to feel a strange trepidation and wonder--as if I had reached the apex of my reason for being human, and I wondered what the curse spoken over me would do to me. Somehow I knew it would not do me eternal damage, but I did know it would cause fundamental change. As he continued, I began to feel a sort of bloating happen to my body, until I could actually see the tissue beneath my eyes swell up enough for me to see a yellow puffiness just below by eyeballs. When he finished the cursing, I felt filled with a strange puss-like substance, and I panicked. I ran out of the church and milled about with the crowd just a bit--matching the common denominator of their confusion with my own. But soon, I calmed down and came to realize the pus was not damaging me and knowing again a sense of longing to be with Thee, I entered the church again--or tried.
The priest met me at the door, he barred the thresh hold with all the people behind him, looking over his shoulder. "You'll never be able to pray here again," he said.
I turned away from the church and immediately knew that although this pus could not hurt me, it could badly damage those around me--I'd become something of a Typhoid Mary in this respect. I did not want to bring harm to others, so I took ran into a wilderness area just to the right of the church. People didn't go there because there was none of life's basic requirements guaranteed there--no assurances of food and shelter. But my choice was between putting myself at risk that way and putting everyone else at risk of the pus-like substance that swelled my body. I chose to put myself at risk, and I ran into that unknown land, perceived to be forbidden because of its fiercely inhospitable nature.
The dream ended there as I woke up at the stress of it, but I woke with two things on my now-conscious mind. Revelation 12--and the woman flees into the wilderness that is prepared for her--and second stage of the Day of Atonement Ritual. In stage one, an animal dies for the sins of the people. But in stage two, a second animal is cursed for the guilt of the people. This animal is not killed but is taken into the wilderness and left there. It is the scapegoat.
Thankfully, the experience with K. and her vision is indeed like a tether to the growing earth. She helps me learn to detach personally from that world of the visions when the time comes for me to be "me" again. It is a detachment that grows harder the more these images overflow with portentious themes, the more "significant" they become in scope, for no longer are they simply about me being tested--a thing difficult enough, but at least comprehensible. Now they are about my fulfilling some slowly unveiled reason for being--not just being human, but being at all. In fear and trembling I feel called to explore the furthest boundaries of why I--why any of us--exists. To stay in the visionary realm could prove quite an abyss from that position; so to find a physical-world connection for expression, and to realize I may represent something larger than just myself in these dreams--these help to shield my sanity.
After having had that last dream, the very same day in fact, I mentioned to a friend something I hoped she'd raise in prayer with me. She began to get a vision during that prayer, and she shared it with me. I hadn't told her about this Crystal Spectre series of dreams, but here is what she saw: she saw an ear of corn beautifully formed, but surrounded by a rotting dead husk. The rotting husk on it would fall away by the prayers of people who knew of it. When the dead husk was stripped away, what was underneath would be exposed: a golden ear of corn, fine and glowing--not a thing needing to be grown or developed like a seed, but fully formed and ready to be revealed. I spent the rest of the day stunned at the imagery parallels between her prayer vision and my morning's dream. Her vision was in response to my search for a practical application in my everyday life to the more fantastic elements of my dream, her vision lifted into that other realm to meet mine. While mine was literally in the air and full of rainbow-promises, hers was in the earth, growing grain--growing nourishment. What an amazing bridge of wisdom I see as I look for the cords that bind the vision and the reality together.
So I entered the last dream that felt related, although the Spectre made no appearance--this dream was, while fantastic, still in the realm of mankind. My memory of the early part is sketchy, only that things were chaotic for people but they got a handle on things and improved them a bit, bringing relief. But the relief was short-lived, and the second period of chaos and confusion did not get any better. People were running around in a panic everywhere. I moved through the crowd until I saw a church. I decided to go into it and pray. When I did, a priest saw me. He pointed me out, told everyone else in the church to think evil of me, and using something like a rosary that he wrapped around my head, he pushed me to the floor. He held me down by the cord he had wrapped around my head--and pressing my head into the floor, he began to curse me. As he cursed in a language I did not understand, I found myself beginning to spin, as if my head were attached to a spinner that swung my body around in a circle, fast enough that my feet left the floor--yet strangely he stayed positioned just above me, holding my head in place. As he cursed and I spun, I began to feel a strange trepidation and wonder--as if I had reached the apex of my reason for being human, and I wondered what the curse spoken over me would do to me. Somehow I knew it would not do me eternal damage, but I did know it would cause fundamental change. As he continued, I began to feel a sort of bloating happen to my body, until I could actually see the tissue beneath my eyes swell up enough for me to see a yellow puffiness just below by eyeballs. When he finished the cursing, I felt filled with a strange puss-like substance, and I panicked. I ran out of the church and milled about with the crowd just a bit--matching the common denominator of their confusion with my own. But soon, I calmed down and came to realize the pus was not damaging me and knowing again a sense of longing to be with Thee, I entered the church again--or tried.
The priest met me at the door, he barred the thresh hold with all the people behind him, looking over his shoulder. "You'll never be able to pray here again," he said.
I turned away from the church and immediately knew that although this pus could not hurt me, it could badly damage those around me--I'd become something of a Typhoid Mary in this respect. I did not want to bring harm to others, so I took ran into a wilderness area just to the right of the church. People didn't go there because there was none of life's basic requirements guaranteed there--no assurances of food and shelter. But my choice was between putting myself at risk that way and putting everyone else at risk of the pus-like substance that swelled my body. I chose to put myself at risk, and I ran into that unknown land, perceived to be forbidden because of its fiercely inhospitable nature.
The dream ended there as I woke up at the stress of it, but I woke with two things on my now-conscious mind. Revelation 12--and the woman flees into the wilderness that is prepared for her--and second stage of the Day of Atonement Ritual. In stage one, an animal dies for the sins of the people. But in stage two, a second animal is cursed for the guilt of the people. This animal is not killed but is taken into the wilderness and left there. It is the scapegoat.
Thankfully, the experience with K. and her vision is indeed like a tether to the growing earth. She helps me learn to detach personally from that world of the visions when the time comes for me to be "me" again. It is a detachment that grows harder the more these images overflow with portentious themes, the more "significant" they become in scope, for no longer are they simply about me being tested--a thing difficult enough, but at least comprehensible. Now they are about my fulfilling some slowly unveiled reason for being--not just being human, but being at all. In fear and trembling I feel called to explore the furthest boundaries of why I--why any of us--exists. To stay in the visionary realm could prove quite an abyss from that position; so to find a physical-world connection for expression, and to realize I may represent something larger than just myself in these dreams--these help to shield my sanity.
The Hem of His Robe...
...an aside from the series started by the last blog--for the sake of record-keeping. What is my latest "assignment"from God? Hems. I read of the border of the garment of the priests being a thing they "enlarged" all to make much of themselves before the people. It captured my attention in a new way during that session of Bible-reading. A few more references to hems gave the topic even more significance, until I recognized You were specifically directing my attention toward it. But I was busy and did not make a study of it while a few days passed. Then in the midst of a homeschooling session, my youngest came to me with his language workbook and asked, "Mom, is hem a noun or a verb? What does it mean?" He had to mark its function in a sentence--the moment was a palpably leading question to the spiritual student in me even as it was a functional one to the natural teacher in me. I went ahead and prioritized a Biblical study of hems and hemlines.
Here is what I found in an online concordance, from Blue Letter Bible's website from Vine's:
the extremity or prominent part of a thing, an edge. It could also be a tassel that Jews attached to their mantles to remind them of the law.
It is also one of those areas that is full spectrum in its potential meaning--as is so much of the truly prophetic message that comes from You. Your leadings are so awe-inspiring in that they ever respect the potentiality of free will, for it can be "good" in the sense that both the bleeding woman and others were healed if they so much as touched the border of Your garment. But it is also an example image used by You in Your list of woes for the scribes and Pharisees, as their enlarged fringed hemlines were in truth a sign of pretense that--along with other indicators--proved their works to be motivated by a worldly drive to receive the praise of men.
I also think of that dream I had about standing before You, and You fastened a mantle upon me, and all over the back of it were hands reaching upward out of its fabric. And when You had it fastened about my neck, I took off into the air in flight. And the mantle was miraculous in that its hem never left the ground, but rather expanded to fill all the sky behind and below me with those hands reaching up toward Your domain. Is it time for that dream to find some sort of human world realization? Help me understand Your leading, O God.
Here is what I found in an online concordance, from Blue Letter Bible's website from Vine's:
the extremity or prominent part of a thing, an edge. It could also be a tassel that Jews attached to their mantles to remind them of the law.
It is also one of those areas that is full spectrum in its potential meaning--as is so much of the truly prophetic message that comes from You. Your leadings are so awe-inspiring in that they ever respect the potentiality of free will, for it can be "good" in the sense that both the bleeding woman and others were healed if they so much as touched the border of Your garment. But it is also an example image used by You in Your list of woes for the scribes and Pharisees, as their enlarged fringed hemlines were in truth a sign of pretense that--along with other indicators--proved their works to be motivated by a worldly drive to receive the praise of men.
I also think of that dream I had about standing before You, and You fastened a mantle upon me, and all over the back of it were hands reaching upward out of its fabric. And when You had it fastened about my neck, I took off into the air in flight. And the mantle was miraculous in that its hem never left the ground, but rather expanded to fill all the sky behind and below me with those hands reaching up toward Your domain. Is it time for that dream to find some sort of human world realization? Help me understand Your leading, O God.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
peeling death away..the Crystal Spectre, part II
Prophesy according to the measure of your faith the New Testament tells us.
When the bride moves from betrothal to honeymoon to beyond...how does prophecy define the change in her state of being, in her role and in her purpose now as bride of the Christ? Is she there simply to gain peace and prestige for herself; or is there some larger, more glorious purpose--one that is larger than her own personal security?
Oswald Chambers gives something of an answer to the question when he comments on Eccl. 7:1. "A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth." Oswald says this verse is not about reputation--as many think at first blush. Rather, it is about character. "Everyone who comes across a good nature is made better by it, unless he or she is determined to be bad...The test of a nature is the atmosphere it produces. When we are in contact with a good nature we are uplifted by it. We do not get anything we can state articulately, but the horizon is enlarged, the pressure is removed from the mind and heart, and we see things differently." How often, God, have I experienced that very thing after a time with Thee! And I have known a few people who have moved within a cloud of that peace-inducing spiritual "mist" he describes.
But are we as a corporate Bride making such an impression on those around us? I fear not, I fear the Church is indeed falling into its apostate era to the degree that it shall soon hit a point of no return. This then is my best first interpretation of the next phase of these dreams about the Crystal Spectre. I pick up with a dream I had in early November, and in the last installment of these reflections on this dream series, I'll consider the church's response.
I lay one morning in the near-dream state of initial consciousness and saw again the crystal spectre. I knew somehow that now was the time for that compassion I'd been forbidden to show earlier, time for it to rise and direct my actions. I flew toward him and touched under the one small point I'd peeled away earlier--that time I cleared a sliver of the husk on him, just enough change to prove that I could do more. But I hadn't been given permission to peel any more death off him, so I asked about it.
"You know I can peel this away. I offered to do so, but you never answered; you only looked at Him." I looked at Jesus, too, then, standing silent and watchful, the perpetrator of my power. "May I peel it away now?" I asked again.
He did not communicate his answer with human words. Somehow, I got the impression he disdained that form of communication unless absolutely necessary, preferring the spirit-image communication that is a more natural mode in his domain. It is indeed profoundly lovely. Was it God or was it him that sent this image to me in a recent dream, an image that would bubble up here as answer to my question? I don't know--but I know that the reflection on this back-dream was the answer to my question about whether to unencumber him from the death shroud.
In that answer-preceding-the-question dream, I'd been looking at an open book. All across the two pages of that book had been written the name Eileen. I know because every time the name appeared, it was underlined in red. When I woke, I felt a profound unction to learn what that name meant. It means: light, or bringer of light. You, O God, once named me Hepzibah melding strange immediate divine imagery with the pre-written text of Your Word. Who was giving me this name now? You or the Dark Spectre himself? Whatever, it little mattered, because the message was clear enough to prompt action.
I began to peel ever so gently the bulk of death off him. He didn't stop me. Death then began to come off him in sheets like rolls of insulation, only it was thickly packed brown deadness. A thing once meant to be supple and dewy with life was now stiff and dry, made of molecules clinging together in desperation, as though through sheer clumpiness it could retain some sense of its former self, despite the loss of moisture. When this death was cleared, I watched my hand drop the last sheet of it, and it fell away into the darkness below to a place too distant for me to see. (We were still in a black, undefined universe.)
I remembered how when I'd recently flown, I'd seen a rainbow outside the plane's window that looked to be in the shape of an eye. The verse popped into my mind. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." This being is indeed intended to twinkle if the light that plays through him is subtle. And death has indeed been exchanged for the freedom of incorruption. But this one's incorruption was not presented as a new thing to put on, but rather a thing already there to be revealed. It is a bit of a difference from the Bible passage's reference to human expectation. "So when this corruptible shall put on incorrution and this mortal immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O hades, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
I think here of the references to the hems of the garments of priests and of my own mantle spreading its borders in that other dream. All these things swell to proportions I can barely comprehend. Peter, too, describes the potentiality I saw in this newly cleared one when he says of prophecy that we heed it as "a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts." And what of that hemline of the law? A case could be made that I respected it, but likewise that I desecrated it. All I can do is ride on Romans 13:10: "Love works no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." As long as I am neighbor to this Dark Spectre, I have no doubt I acted in love.
But after the clearing had been accomplished and light could again penetrate the body of this being, he turned his attention to the broken shells of spirit wheels that clung to either side of him. I had been given no instruction as to how to rectify the problem of the broken spirit. He grew angry, and his countenance--for he'd taken the form to bear a recognizable countenance here--showed his rage at being taken half-way to his goal and then dropped there. He felt I'd succeeded only in mocking him, a condition he'd deflected successfully for a long time. But this was not in my heart, and I asked him to be patient while I asked You about this problem.
I did come and ask You. When I returned, I came with this message from You to him: you have been given a great gift--an opportunity to experience hope and faith. The question now is not what I--a human--can further do for you, but what you can do with this gift from above? You have the hope of a renewal that is already started. But do you have the faith that He who began a good work in you would be faithful to complete it? (I wondered to myself: has an angel ever required faith such as this before--or even experienced a situation requiring it? I think not--they have their own form of faith, but it is nothing like this. I know faith without works is dead--so this faith needed a circumstance for proving itself valid, of working--or else the death being stripped away would never become anything more than a dream.) I said, "This is a work I cannot do; only your faith can accomplish it." Then I slipped away from the dream and woke to life again. I do not know what the Crystal Spectre will do now, but I hope for the best. I have, however, one more dream to consider. It touches on the response of the scribes and the Pharisees to my actions.
When the bride moves from betrothal to honeymoon to beyond...how does prophecy define the change in her state of being, in her role and in her purpose now as bride of the Christ? Is she there simply to gain peace and prestige for herself; or is there some larger, more glorious purpose--one that is larger than her own personal security?
Oswald Chambers gives something of an answer to the question when he comments on Eccl. 7:1. "A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth." Oswald says this verse is not about reputation--as many think at first blush. Rather, it is about character. "Everyone who comes across a good nature is made better by it, unless he or she is determined to be bad...The test of a nature is the atmosphere it produces. When we are in contact with a good nature we are uplifted by it. We do not get anything we can state articulately, but the horizon is enlarged, the pressure is removed from the mind and heart, and we see things differently." How often, God, have I experienced that very thing after a time with Thee! And I have known a few people who have moved within a cloud of that peace-inducing spiritual "mist" he describes.
But are we as a corporate Bride making such an impression on those around us? I fear not, I fear the Church is indeed falling into its apostate era to the degree that it shall soon hit a point of no return. This then is my best first interpretation of the next phase of these dreams about the Crystal Spectre. I pick up with a dream I had in early November, and in the last installment of these reflections on this dream series, I'll consider the church's response.
I lay one morning in the near-dream state of initial consciousness and saw again the crystal spectre. I knew somehow that now was the time for that compassion I'd been forbidden to show earlier, time for it to rise and direct my actions. I flew toward him and touched under the one small point I'd peeled away earlier--that time I cleared a sliver of the husk on him, just enough change to prove that I could do more. But I hadn't been given permission to peel any more death off him, so I asked about it.
"You know I can peel this away. I offered to do so, but you never answered; you only looked at Him." I looked at Jesus, too, then, standing silent and watchful, the perpetrator of my power. "May I peel it away now?" I asked again.
He did not communicate his answer with human words. Somehow, I got the impression he disdained that form of communication unless absolutely necessary, preferring the spirit-image communication that is a more natural mode in his domain. It is indeed profoundly lovely. Was it God or was it him that sent this image to me in a recent dream, an image that would bubble up here as answer to my question? I don't know--but I know that the reflection on this back-dream was the answer to my question about whether to unencumber him from the death shroud.
In that answer-preceding-the-question dream, I'd been looking at an open book. All across the two pages of that book had been written the name Eileen. I know because every time the name appeared, it was underlined in red. When I woke, I felt a profound unction to learn what that name meant. It means: light, or bringer of light. You, O God, once named me Hepzibah melding strange immediate divine imagery with the pre-written text of Your Word. Who was giving me this name now? You or the Dark Spectre himself? Whatever, it little mattered, because the message was clear enough to prompt action.
I began to peel ever so gently the bulk of death off him. He didn't stop me. Death then began to come off him in sheets like rolls of insulation, only it was thickly packed brown deadness. A thing once meant to be supple and dewy with life was now stiff and dry, made of molecules clinging together in desperation, as though through sheer clumpiness it could retain some sense of its former self, despite the loss of moisture. When this death was cleared, I watched my hand drop the last sheet of it, and it fell away into the darkness below to a place too distant for me to see. (We were still in a black, undefined universe.)
I remembered how when I'd recently flown, I'd seen a rainbow outside the plane's window that looked to be in the shape of an eye. The verse popped into my mind. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." This being is indeed intended to twinkle if the light that plays through him is subtle. And death has indeed been exchanged for the freedom of incorruption. But this one's incorruption was not presented as a new thing to put on, but rather a thing already there to be revealed. It is a bit of a difference from the Bible passage's reference to human expectation. "So when this corruptible shall put on incorrution and this mortal immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O hades, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
I think here of the references to the hems of the garments of priests and of my own mantle spreading its borders in that other dream. All these things swell to proportions I can barely comprehend. Peter, too, describes the potentiality I saw in this newly cleared one when he says of prophecy that we heed it as "a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts." And what of that hemline of the law? A case could be made that I respected it, but likewise that I desecrated it. All I can do is ride on Romans 13:10: "Love works no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." As long as I am neighbor to this Dark Spectre, I have no doubt I acted in love.
But after the clearing had been accomplished and light could again penetrate the body of this being, he turned his attention to the broken shells of spirit wheels that clung to either side of him. I had been given no instruction as to how to rectify the problem of the broken spirit. He grew angry, and his countenance--for he'd taken the form to bear a recognizable countenance here--showed his rage at being taken half-way to his goal and then dropped there. He felt I'd succeeded only in mocking him, a condition he'd deflected successfully for a long time. But this was not in my heart, and I asked him to be patient while I asked You about this problem.
I did come and ask You. When I returned, I came with this message from You to him: you have been given a great gift--an opportunity to experience hope and faith. The question now is not what I--a human--can further do for you, but what you can do with this gift from above? You have the hope of a renewal that is already started. But do you have the faith that He who began a good work in you would be faithful to complete it? (I wondered to myself: has an angel ever required faith such as this before--or even experienced a situation requiring it? I think not--they have their own form of faith, but it is nothing like this. I know faith without works is dead--so this faith needed a circumstance for proving itself valid, of working--or else the death being stripped away would never become anything more than a dream.) I said, "This is a work I cannot do; only your faith can accomplish it." Then I slipped away from the dream and woke to life again. I do not know what the Crystal Spectre will do now, but I hope for the best. I have, however, one more dream to consider. It touches on the response of the scribes and the Pharisees to my actions.
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.
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.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Ode to the Soul's Equinox...
Seven days left
and Equinox...
But a season's change hardly slinks
to practiced eyes.
A stand of trees may flaunt leaves, all green,
but the whispered hint of another color is in their bowing:
this one plum, that one crimson,
a feathery spectral sight.
Rows of corn, mature and not dying--nevertheless,
their brown-tassel overlay promises
dry ranks and fading in a near tomorrow.
A field of beans, dappled green
gold:
these can not hide
that haze of mauve, dusting light,
a powder over the surface,
invisible up close, but even from a distance
never present until now.
Everywhere colors gone dusky--
too tired for the vibrant hues of days gone by, but still
not captured by that second wind of autumn glory.
And yet,
that rejuvenating wind
will doubtless come--
See!
Even now,
the overgrowth dies back to manageable mounds,
adding softness more than threat to the landscape;
and the heat of a once-nearer sun no longer wilts the best of life.
Even now,
the clouds pose across the sky more subtly,
making little more than textural change
in a faded flap of blue.
Clouds willingly demure,
Their shade now no respite;
for this sun
--this sun--
throws champagne gold
in beams wherever the lengthening shadows
of ground life
fail to interfere.
Clouds embracing high humility,
first to recognize
this sun's promise:
wine from the plum hills,
somewhere between the gold
and the coming frost.
It is ever a choice
--if you stop to consider for this brief moment--
whether to grieve or to glory;
and whether to believe the sun changed directions,
or you did.
and Equinox...
But a season's change hardly slinks
to practiced eyes.
A stand of trees may flaunt leaves, all green,
but the whispered hint of another color is in their bowing:
this one plum, that one crimson,
a feathery spectral sight.
Rows of corn, mature and not dying--nevertheless,
their brown-tassel overlay promises
dry ranks and fading in a near tomorrow.
A field of beans, dappled green
gold:
these can not hide
that haze of mauve, dusting light,
a powder over the surface,
invisible up close, but even from a distance
never present until now.
Everywhere colors gone dusky--
too tired for the vibrant hues of days gone by, but still
not captured by that second wind of autumn glory.
And yet,
that rejuvenating wind
will doubtless come--
See!
Even now,
the overgrowth dies back to manageable mounds,
adding softness more than threat to the landscape;
and the heat of a once-nearer sun no longer wilts the best of life.
Even now,
the clouds pose across the sky more subtly,
making little more than textural change
in a faded flap of blue.
Clouds willingly demure,
Their shade now no respite;
for this sun
--this sun--
throws champagne gold
in beams wherever the lengthening shadows
of ground life
fail to interfere.
Clouds embracing high humility,
first to recognize
this sun's promise:
wine from the plum hills,
somewhere between the gold
and the coming frost.
It is ever a choice
--if you stop to consider for this brief moment--
whether to grieve or to glory;
and whether to believe the sun changed directions,
or you did.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
What do you call worship?
I had a dream in which God requested something of me, but in the strange way that is now so common between us; another one of those moments when God seems to chuckle and say, "Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. You'll see."
I had a dream, and in it, I was given an assignment by God. He asked me to visit a series of churches, specifically to check out the foam level. I began to visit churches randomly, and indeed they all had mounds of foam, like suds frothing up on their floors. I studied the status of that foam at church after church, quite diligently I did my job. And it didn't seem odd that there should be foam, nor that I should give it such careful attention. In time, I felt ready to report back to God. So I returned to Him and made my report: the foam was still there, but it was dissipating, breaking down. And that was the end of the dream.
I've had enough of these dreams to have learned two things about my reception of them: I must proceed with patience, but likewise with attention. Like a pot moved to a back burner to simmer while other things might happened on the front burner, so this dream was that back burner's fare that was nonetheless still on the menu.
So I was hardly surprised when some time later, in the course of my regular Bible reading, I came across this passage. There was once a time when such a correlation left me breathless while cold chills ran the length of my spine. Now I simply smile a secret-well-shared sort of smile. Does that mean You are growing our relationship to new levels of familiarity? In any case, here is the reference:
Jud 1:10 Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals–these are the very things that destroy them.
Jud 1:11 Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam's error; they have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion.
Jud 1:12 These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm–shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted–twice dead.
Jud 1:13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
There was my foam. Shame, unrecognized and ineffective in changing those causing it.
I went deeper into a study on these ones so graphically defined as dangerous and fruitless for any genuinely good result. The book of Jude is a small book; an interesting one to consider. For instance, it rests some of its arguments on texts that historic Jews considered common knowledge (like the texts that documented the dispute between Michael and the Devil over Moses' body and all the prophecies of Enoch) but are not a part of the holy canon. Now, 1700 years after the Nicaean Council's historic meeting about the unification of the Christian faith, these texts are virtually unknown to Christians, even by title, and certainly are more unfamiliar in content than they were to the original readers of these letters to the churches. That is one interesting point about the book of Jude--how it reminds us what is no longer common knowledge. Another is its brevity, and in that sense, its purity of intent. It addresses one need, fields one warning, fleshes out one danger: beware the false teacher/leader. People of the true faith are instructed on how to move forward in their walk with God despite these false ones who shamelessly stain the fabric of the corporate faith.
I understood the dream's call, then and was sobered by it. But, implementing it was hardly feasible. Both my husband and I had worship, service and leadership commitments within our local church. How were we to make this assessment happen? And, even before we could go to work on making such a survey doable, the family was struck with mono, and no one went to church for a couple of months, or went much of anywhere for that matter except the doctor's office! Life circumstances extricated us from most obligations, one by one, but that is already documented here.
When we recovered and returned to church, we were completely free of those obligations as we'd been out of the loop for a while. It was time to pick up the reigns again if we were going to do so, but even as we "visited" again our church home, we felt a change within us. Neither of us felt particularly led to resume our former work in the church. What's more, we felt led to go out and visit other churches. Maybe it was time for a change, we thought. Funny how just a few months in the wilderness of illness made me forget the dream and its defining Scripture.
But as we began visiting other churches, each time I felt a question, a test if you will, pop into my mind. Watch for this, I'd hear in my mind's ear. Look for this, I'd feel told to watch with my mind's eye. And as for what my heart might perceive, this was all the more mysterious and off the beaten path of past experiences with "church shopping." For instance, at one church, I was listening to a sermon on the topic of being willing to embrace relationship with God outside the realm of His provision for our creature comforts. As I diligently took my notes on the back of my bulletin in that space labeled: Sermon Notes, an idea popped into my mind--Jesus addressed this topic when He spoke of how foxes have dens, but the Son of Man has no place to rest His head. Jesus should be one of the points of evidence confirming the validity of this aspect of the life of faith. But points one, two and three went by without Jesus making an appearance in the sermon. I thought the sermon might fail to present its most conclusive evidence proving its assertion when in a last point--a fourth point (who preaches a four-point sermon!?!)--the pastor at last brought Jesus on the scene. The image of the dissipating foam suddenly flashed to mind. We were living the drama of the dream, indeed had walked through Acts I and II before we even knew we were on stage. I believe those moments of human realization of divine intervention are surely a delight to God. I've felt His glee when He knows we've discovered His amazing plans presented mid-stream such that we are shielded from taking undue credit for their wisdom--because the awareness arrived both late and effortlessly full blown.
So we stepped all the more alertly into this church hunt, realizing it had a larger context than simply one family finding a new church wherein to worship. I believe we all--as God's creation--have opportunities to live in a larger context than the details of our singular time-locked lives. We are living poetry, and a blessed few even know it.
But now the children grow weary. They (and we) would like to settle somewhere. We long for a place to call home in the worship sense. Still, as an encouragement, the Spirit reminds us kindly that our work matters. Last night, we had deep-spirit friends over for dinner. A sudden shower drove that summer-rain scent through the window, wafting over the fantastic aroma of my husband's handiwork: a barbecued tenderloin that all agreed was some of the best barbecue they'd ever tasted. Even as the rain fell softly outside like a gentle cocoon, we sat in the warm glow of the well-lit dining room. There my friend commented on a day last week when clouds all day seemed to promise rain, yet in the end gave none.
This morning, I decided to re-visit my Commission, and there I saw a reminder that the Spirit is still with us, even through the weariness of our human frailty, and even through a common little dinner shared with friends, an event that hardly classifies as worship in the grand scheme of worship services. But I saw again the verse that claimed false teachers are like rainless clouds, and I remembered how my spirit-sister reminded me last night, without meaning to be profound in the least, and in such being profound all the more, that rainless clouds have made an appearance recently, but now were but a thing of passing memory.
After the rainless clouds have their day, a good meal will be shared, warm company enjoyed, even hearty and passionate differences of opinion bandied about in loving fun, all as the clouds keep their promises of gentle rain. I can face the Sabbath in peace a while longer, God; and as is so often the case, (I quote my husband here)I can persevere and endure almost anything as long as I know what is ahead of me. Even better, when the knowing fortells something good.
Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord. Psalms 107:43
I had a dream, and in it, I was given an assignment by God. He asked me to visit a series of churches, specifically to check out the foam level. I began to visit churches randomly, and indeed they all had mounds of foam, like suds frothing up on their floors. I studied the status of that foam at church after church, quite diligently I did my job. And it didn't seem odd that there should be foam, nor that I should give it such careful attention. In time, I felt ready to report back to God. So I returned to Him and made my report: the foam was still there, but it was dissipating, breaking down. And that was the end of the dream.
I've had enough of these dreams to have learned two things about my reception of them: I must proceed with patience, but likewise with attention. Like a pot moved to a back burner to simmer while other things might happened on the front burner, so this dream was that back burner's fare that was nonetheless still on the menu.
So I was hardly surprised when some time later, in the course of my regular Bible reading, I came across this passage. There was once a time when such a correlation left me breathless while cold chills ran the length of my spine. Now I simply smile a secret-well-shared sort of smile. Does that mean You are growing our relationship to new levels of familiarity? In any case, here is the reference:
Jud 1:10 Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals–these are the very things that destroy them.
Jud 1:11 Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam's error; they have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion.
Jud 1:12 These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm–shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted–twice dead.
Jud 1:13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
There was my foam. Shame, unrecognized and ineffective in changing those causing it.
I went deeper into a study on these ones so graphically defined as dangerous and fruitless for any genuinely good result. The book of Jude is a small book; an interesting one to consider. For instance, it rests some of its arguments on texts that historic Jews considered common knowledge (like the texts that documented the dispute between Michael and the Devil over Moses' body and all the prophecies of Enoch) but are not a part of the holy canon. Now, 1700 years after the Nicaean Council's historic meeting about the unification of the Christian faith, these texts are virtually unknown to Christians, even by title, and certainly are more unfamiliar in content than they were to the original readers of these letters to the churches. That is one interesting point about the book of Jude--how it reminds us what is no longer common knowledge. Another is its brevity, and in that sense, its purity of intent. It addresses one need, fields one warning, fleshes out one danger: beware the false teacher/leader. People of the true faith are instructed on how to move forward in their walk with God despite these false ones who shamelessly stain the fabric of the corporate faith.
I understood the dream's call, then and was sobered by it. But, implementing it was hardly feasible. Both my husband and I had worship, service and leadership commitments within our local church. How were we to make this assessment happen? And, even before we could go to work on making such a survey doable, the family was struck with mono, and no one went to church for a couple of months, or went much of anywhere for that matter except the doctor's office! Life circumstances extricated us from most obligations, one by one, but that is already documented here.
When we recovered and returned to church, we were completely free of those obligations as we'd been out of the loop for a while. It was time to pick up the reigns again if we were going to do so, but even as we "visited" again our church home, we felt a change within us. Neither of us felt particularly led to resume our former work in the church. What's more, we felt led to go out and visit other churches. Maybe it was time for a change, we thought. Funny how just a few months in the wilderness of illness made me forget the dream and its defining Scripture.
But as we began visiting other churches, each time I felt a question, a test if you will, pop into my mind. Watch for this, I'd hear in my mind's ear. Look for this, I'd feel told to watch with my mind's eye. And as for what my heart might perceive, this was all the more mysterious and off the beaten path of past experiences with "church shopping." For instance, at one church, I was listening to a sermon on the topic of being willing to embrace relationship with God outside the realm of His provision for our creature comforts. As I diligently took my notes on the back of my bulletin in that space labeled: Sermon Notes, an idea popped into my mind--Jesus addressed this topic when He spoke of how foxes have dens, but the Son of Man has no place to rest His head. Jesus should be one of the points of evidence confirming the validity of this aspect of the life of faith. But points one, two and three went by without Jesus making an appearance in the sermon. I thought the sermon might fail to present its most conclusive evidence proving its assertion when in a last point--a fourth point (who preaches a four-point sermon!?!)--the pastor at last brought Jesus on the scene. The image of the dissipating foam suddenly flashed to mind. We were living the drama of the dream, indeed had walked through Acts I and II before we even knew we were on stage. I believe those moments of human realization of divine intervention are surely a delight to God. I've felt His glee when He knows we've discovered His amazing plans presented mid-stream such that we are shielded from taking undue credit for their wisdom--because the awareness arrived both late and effortlessly full blown.
So we stepped all the more alertly into this church hunt, realizing it had a larger context than simply one family finding a new church wherein to worship. I believe we all--as God's creation--have opportunities to live in a larger context than the details of our singular time-locked lives. We are living poetry, and a blessed few even know it.
But now the children grow weary. They (and we) would like to settle somewhere. We long for a place to call home in the worship sense. Still, as an encouragement, the Spirit reminds us kindly that our work matters. Last night, we had deep-spirit friends over for dinner. A sudden shower drove that summer-rain scent through the window, wafting over the fantastic aroma of my husband's handiwork: a barbecued tenderloin that all agreed was some of the best barbecue they'd ever tasted. Even as the rain fell softly outside like a gentle cocoon, we sat in the warm glow of the well-lit dining room. There my friend commented on a day last week when clouds all day seemed to promise rain, yet in the end gave none.
This morning, I decided to re-visit my Commission, and there I saw a reminder that the Spirit is still with us, even through the weariness of our human frailty, and even through a common little dinner shared with friends, an event that hardly classifies as worship in the grand scheme of worship services. But I saw again the verse that claimed false teachers are like rainless clouds, and I remembered how my spirit-sister reminded me last night, without meaning to be profound in the least, and in such being profound all the more, that rainless clouds have made an appearance recently, but now were but a thing of passing memory.
After the rainless clouds have their day, a good meal will be shared, warm company enjoyed, even hearty and passionate differences of opinion bandied about in loving fun, all as the clouds keep their promises of gentle rain. I can face the Sabbath in peace a while longer, God; and as is so often the case, (I quote my husband here)I can persevere and endure almost anything as long as I know what is ahead of me. Even better, when the knowing fortells something good.
Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord. Psalms 107:43
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Pentecost Dreams
This morning, in that netherworld between sleeping and full awakening, I had one of those near-dreams wash refreshing over my spirit. I don't have them often, so they are always a pleasure to receive. In this one, I sat on the couch where I commonly sit and gazed at a grouping of candles, along with a vase, on the coffee table in front of me. The thing that refreshed my heart at the appearance of this scene before me was that all these elements were caught up in a gleam that sprang from some light source shining over my shoulder. This gleaming vase, alongside the softness of the candlelight, made me catch my spiritual breath at its loveliness. But one little candle caught my attention. It, too, had its way of gleaming, but its sparkle was due to its encasement in a cellophane wrapper. It was a short pillar nestled in front of other, taller pillars that burned serenely behind it, but it was of the same nature as them. It simply needed one more action taken to prepare it to join the light. I reached out and took it out of its wrapper so that it, too, could be used. And somehow I knew that little candle was me.
When I rose from my bed with this dream still on my mind, I took fresh coffee and my prayer journal out on the front porch to enjoy a golden dawn as I meditated upon Your interactions with me. Yesterday, I swept that porch--clearing it of the late winter/early spring cobwebs and aborted seed pods and dead leaves. I brought out the tall ferns that were not faring so well inside the house--the cats want to play in them. And I brought out the wicker chair that migrates seasonally from our foyer to the front porch. Yesterday, I made an inviting place just outside my front door, and today I took my first morning of meditation there. A "welcome" flag covered with primitive-art sunflowers flapped lightly in the breeze, and a dawning sun, as yet hidden by the garage, nevertheless showed itself in the sheen it cast across the tops of the dewy, cobwebbed bushes. I was reminded that all my sweeping would not ultimately alter the fact that spiders will come and go, but I was alright with that.
And the soft wind whispered a new expectation into my prayer time. Pentecost.
I've been called by the Spirit to expect a Baptism, a personal encounter with the Cross and Resurrection of my Lord Jesus Christ, a Circumcision from my own human belief in my personal potency. And each of these expectations was made manifest in my life, most of them with great strain in the birthing of them. This time I believe it may be different--the associated strain may come later. This time as I hear something about this next wayside stop on life's journey I hear whispers of a Pentecost, and there are noteworthy differences in such a call from these previous advents, if you will. It strikes me as interesting, to look back over the last few years as each of these landmark moments became a part of my being. At first, these foreshadowing nudges, enigmatic as the course of the wind and easily misunderstood if not received in faith--they prompted confusion and strangeness that was very nearly unwelcome as I had not walked with them in my bosom until they found their opportunities for fruition. But as I receive them with some small measure of experience now, that strangeness has evaporated into a more confident expectancy. They foster excitement as I can now anticipate Your doing a great work upon me because of what You have previously done.
If this is indeed a Pentecost in the truest sense of the word, I am excited; for this is the first such pronouncement over me that reaches beyond the blessing of personal benefit, reaches into a new domain--one where You bless others through me.
Yes, itt is fitting that I stepped outside my front door to hear such a message this morning. And my response prayer: May it be on earth as it is in heaven, may it be evident in the flesh as it is in the prayers of the Spirit and the Son...
When I rose from my bed with this dream still on my mind, I took fresh coffee and my prayer journal out on the front porch to enjoy a golden dawn as I meditated upon Your interactions with me. Yesterday, I swept that porch--clearing it of the late winter/early spring cobwebs and aborted seed pods and dead leaves. I brought out the tall ferns that were not faring so well inside the house--the cats want to play in them. And I brought out the wicker chair that migrates seasonally from our foyer to the front porch. Yesterday, I made an inviting place just outside my front door, and today I took my first morning of meditation there. A "welcome" flag covered with primitive-art sunflowers flapped lightly in the breeze, and a dawning sun, as yet hidden by the garage, nevertheless showed itself in the sheen it cast across the tops of the dewy, cobwebbed bushes. I was reminded that all my sweeping would not ultimately alter the fact that spiders will come and go, but I was alright with that.
And the soft wind whispered a new expectation into my prayer time. Pentecost.
I've been called by the Spirit to expect a Baptism, a personal encounter with the Cross and Resurrection of my Lord Jesus Christ, a Circumcision from my own human belief in my personal potency. And each of these expectations was made manifest in my life, most of them with great strain in the birthing of them. This time I believe it may be different--the associated strain may come later. This time as I hear something about this next wayside stop on life's journey I hear whispers of a Pentecost, and there are noteworthy differences in such a call from these previous advents, if you will. It strikes me as interesting, to look back over the last few years as each of these landmark moments became a part of my being. At first, these foreshadowing nudges, enigmatic as the course of the wind and easily misunderstood if not received in faith--they prompted confusion and strangeness that was very nearly unwelcome as I had not walked with them in my bosom until they found their opportunities for fruition. But as I receive them with some small measure of experience now, that strangeness has evaporated into a more confident expectancy. They foster excitement as I can now anticipate Your doing a great work upon me because of what You have previously done.
If this is indeed a Pentecost in the truest sense of the word, I am excited; for this is the first such pronouncement over me that reaches beyond the blessing of personal benefit, reaches into a new domain--one where You bless others through me.
Yes, itt is fitting that I stepped outside my front door to hear such a message this morning. And my response prayer: May it be on earth as it is in heaven, may it be evident in the flesh as it is in the prayers of the Spirit and the Son...
Sunday, May 24, 2009
my favorite dream in the minds of the mystics...
March 24 and 25, 2006, I wrote the following entries about my "favorite" dream:
my favorite dream...
...begins dismally. I'm either climbing up through a false ceiling in a dark, cramped, rodent-infested closet or I am ascending a gloomy staircase into something like a turret, with tiny windows along the way giving a view that triggers vertigo. Chipped paint and cobwebs show that this route has not been recently taken, let alone maintained. In that respect, it is much like the condition of the closet. Both variations of the dream's introduction have me going through a tiny trap-door opening at the top of the closet/turret. I climb into what I presume will be an even grimmer attic. Every time, to my surprise, this "attic" is ridiculously more spacious than the underlying structure warrants. Also, it is lavish and beautifully prepared for occupancy: heavy and rich wood doors and floors, huge vaulting ceilings, Persian rugs and elegant furnishings. A strange but somehow natural light suffuses through the closed, frothy curtains covering rank after rank of tall windows. As I explore, I find that each room is more breath-taking than the last. I feel like a child who stumbled onto a fairy castle, a castle kept long, but spotlessly ready, waiting for its inhabitants. I am thrilled to have "discovered" the place, thrilled to have it all to myself.In times past, I had this dream frequently...at least 3-4 times a year. After each occurrence, I'd feel light-hearted and unusually joyful the whole next day. One time about a year ago, I had this same dream, but this time other people found their way into the attic behind me. My initial reaction was disappointment. Having these people come to me and want me to help them find their own "places" in the castle took away the magic and made my own place there that of a servant. It was the last time I had the dream.In time, I came to realize the dreams were a question: would I take the beautiful spiritual world I have indeed been given and share it with others? Apparently, my subconscious initially said, "no." Since then, my conscious mind committed my will to the challenge of making myself available no matter what my subconscious desires might selfishly be and no matter what the personal sacrifice of intimacy and freedom. Since then, God has orchestrated a series of unusual events, books, people--to bombard me with opportunity to strengthen this "will to serve" that I've committed into His hands. I've prayed to have the dream again, in the hopes of being a better "hostess" to weary climbers. I miss the dream enough now that I'd be happy to share it, if it means I, too, get a part of it again. Oh, to have it just one more time...but even that is a sign that I haven't quite "got there" yet. I'll probably have it again, the very day I forget to want it...Isn't it strange for a dream to be that powerful over my waking life?
and the next day I wrote:
...today I discovered a verse in the words of the ancient prophet Zechariah that matches my dream...at least the component of the tiny passage leading to a palace so large that it can not be of the same "reality" as the closet/stairway, the impossibility of the largeness and beauty of the one place sitting above the small and grimness of the other:"Rejoice, daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh; he is just and having salvation." The connection doesn't appear until you look into the Hebrew word origins for the King James here. The word translated in this verse as salvation is also applied in other references to convey the idea "broad, ample, spacious and opulent." Wow!
Now, 3 years and a bit later, I'm reading a Larry Crabb book entitles Becoming a True Spiritual Community and find he uses the following to describe the "other place to be" that is found in the musings of the likes of Augustine and Teresa of Avila. He describes a state of being equivalent to choosing between two rooms, one being the self-actualizing, self-made room below, and the other the "Christ in you" room that Paul describes in scripture. One, the room fashioned for us by Spirit of God and the other, the room designed by the flesh to "preserve and enhance one's own well-being."
Crabb goes into a rather thorough survey of these two rooms, and I find myself seeing definition to the "secret, hidden apartment" that has eluded my dreams for so long now...For the record, here are some of his distinctions between life in the two domains (rooms) as well as observations on how to secure the "upper" one:
These are the furnishings of the Lower Room: (1) We long for good relationships; (2) we look after our own needs; (3) the world both frustrates and satisfies us, sometimes one more than the other; we learn what we like about the world and go after it; and (4) we are aware of a moral code that tells us what we should and should not do in our pursuit of happiness.
This is life in the first room. God isn't there-at least, He isn't recognized or taken into account. But that's where most of us live.
There is a second room, another place, another way to live. In every human heart there is a sense of something more...
...In people not yet connected to Christ, the better room is there but it's dark. (I am speaking of the eternal soul in every person.) The electricity has not yet been hooked up. And there are no furnishings...But when the Spirit resurrects the soul and infuses it with new life, the room sparkles with light...
...People long for relationship. In the Upper Room, it already exists. No one 'demands' relationship in this room. They already have it, and they know that one day they will fully and forever enjoy its pleasures. And people in the Upper Room aren't obsessed with figuring life out. They prefer to live life rather than analyze it. They have no sense that something fragile within them needs protection and no compelling urge to find themselves. They have already been found. With the pantry full, their strongest desire is to set another place at the table and invite someone else in to enjoy the feast.
Crabb notes the point in scripture where Jesus designates the room in which the Passover meal was to be taken, He directs His disciples to seek a man carrying a jar of water. (Luke 22:10-12) What Crabb says next has never occurred to me before--that this man would stand out for one primary reason: he was doing "women's work" in carrying a jar. He was not bound by the pride and authority of his position as a man in his society. In the culture of Jesus' day, such a man would be unique in all the ways that signal an Upper Room host. And, I rejoiced again for catching one of those glimmers of perfection that flash all over the Gospels, but that we're so often too preoccupied to notice.
So many things to "catch up" on in this blog, God. I love my time musing here with You. But this is a good start. Life changes loom large in the days ahead for me, but great is the reminder of the assurances You give that these changes will sprout from seeds You planted, planted even three seasons ago in soil that was busy with other crops, but whose germinating is nevertheless a sure thing.
My one prayer for today is this: thank You for taking me exploring again, exploring in the Upper Room. Thanks You that its shadows are taking substance. Thanks You for bringing again Your words:
Rejoice, daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh. He is just and having salvation!
my favorite dream...
...begins dismally. I'm either climbing up through a false ceiling in a dark, cramped, rodent-infested closet or I am ascending a gloomy staircase into something like a turret, with tiny windows along the way giving a view that triggers vertigo. Chipped paint and cobwebs show that this route has not been recently taken, let alone maintained. In that respect, it is much like the condition of the closet. Both variations of the dream's introduction have me going through a tiny trap-door opening at the top of the closet/turret. I climb into what I presume will be an even grimmer attic. Every time, to my surprise, this "attic" is ridiculously more spacious than the underlying structure warrants. Also, it is lavish and beautifully prepared for occupancy: heavy and rich wood doors and floors, huge vaulting ceilings, Persian rugs and elegant furnishings. A strange but somehow natural light suffuses through the closed, frothy curtains covering rank after rank of tall windows. As I explore, I find that each room is more breath-taking than the last. I feel like a child who stumbled onto a fairy castle, a castle kept long, but spotlessly ready, waiting for its inhabitants. I am thrilled to have "discovered" the place, thrilled to have it all to myself.In times past, I had this dream frequently...at least 3-4 times a year. After each occurrence, I'd feel light-hearted and unusually joyful the whole next day. One time about a year ago, I had this same dream, but this time other people found their way into the attic behind me. My initial reaction was disappointment. Having these people come to me and want me to help them find their own "places" in the castle took away the magic and made my own place there that of a servant. It was the last time I had the dream.In time, I came to realize the dreams were a question: would I take the beautiful spiritual world I have indeed been given and share it with others? Apparently, my subconscious initially said, "no." Since then, my conscious mind committed my will to the challenge of making myself available no matter what my subconscious desires might selfishly be and no matter what the personal sacrifice of intimacy and freedom. Since then, God has orchestrated a series of unusual events, books, people--to bombard me with opportunity to strengthen this "will to serve" that I've committed into His hands. I've prayed to have the dream again, in the hopes of being a better "hostess" to weary climbers. I miss the dream enough now that I'd be happy to share it, if it means I, too, get a part of it again. Oh, to have it just one more time...but even that is a sign that I haven't quite "got there" yet. I'll probably have it again, the very day I forget to want it...Isn't it strange for a dream to be that powerful over my waking life?
and the next day I wrote:
...today I discovered a verse in the words of the ancient prophet Zechariah that matches my dream...at least the component of the tiny passage leading to a palace so large that it can not be of the same "reality" as the closet/stairway, the impossibility of the largeness and beauty of the one place sitting above the small and grimness of the other:"Rejoice, daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh; he is just and having salvation." The connection doesn't appear until you look into the Hebrew word origins for the King James here. The word translated in this verse as salvation is also applied in other references to convey the idea "broad, ample, spacious and opulent." Wow!
Now, 3 years and a bit later, I'm reading a Larry Crabb book entitles Becoming a True Spiritual Community and find he uses the following to describe the "other place to be" that is found in the musings of the likes of Augustine and Teresa of Avila. He describes a state of being equivalent to choosing between two rooms, one being the self-actualizing, self-made room below, and the other the "Christ in you" room that Paul describes in scripture. One, the room fashioned for us by Spirit of God and the other, the room designed by the flesh to "preserve and enhance one's own well-being."
Crabb goes into a rather thorough survey of these two rooms, and I find myself seeing definition to the "secret, hidden apartment" that has eluded my dreams for so long now...For the record, here are some of his distinctions between life in the two domains (rooms) as well as observations on how to secure the "upper" one:
These are the furnishings of the Lower Room: (1) We long for good relationships; (2) we look after our own needs; (3) the world both frustrates and satisfies us, sometimes one more than the other; we learn what we like about the world and go after it; and (4) we are aware of a moral code that tells us what we should and should not do in our pursuit of happiness.
This is life in the first room. God isn't there-at least, He isn't recognized or taken into account. But that's where most of us live.
There is a second room, another place, another way to live. In every human heart there is a sense of something more...
...In people not yet connected to Christ, the better room is there but it's dark. (I am speaking of the eternal soul in every person.) The electricity has not yet been hooked up. And there are no furnishings...But when the Spirit resurrects the soul and infuses it with new life, the room sparkles with light...
...People long for relationship. In the Upper Room, it already exists. No one 'demands' relationship in this room. They already have it, and they know that one day they will fully and forever enjoy its pleasures. And people in the Upper Room aren't obsessed with figuring life out. They prefer to live life rather than analyze it. They have no sense that something fragile within them needs protection and no compelling urge to find themselves. They have already been found. With the pantry full, their strongest desire is to set another place at the table and invite someone else in to enjoy the feast.
Crabb notes the point in scripture where Jesus designates the room in which the Passover meal was to be taken, He directs His disciples to seek a man carrying a jar of water. (Luke 22:10-12) What Crabb says next has never occurred to me before--that this man would stand out for one primary reason: he was doing "women's work" in carrying a jar. He was not bound by the pride and authority of his position as a man in his society. In the culture of Jesus' day, such a man would be unique in all the ways that signal an Upper Room host. And, I rejoiced again for catching one of those glimmers of perfection that flash all over the Gospels, but that we're so often too preoccupied to notice.
So many things to "catch up" on in this blog, God. I love my time musing here with You. But this is a good start. Life changes loom large in the days ahead for me, but great is the reminder of the assurances You give that these changes will sprout from seeds You planted, planted even three seasons ago in soil that was busy with other crops, but whose germinating is nevertheless a sure thing.
My one prayer for today is this: thank You for taking me exploring again, exploring in the Upper Room. Thanks You that its shadows are taking substance. Thanks You for bringing again Your words:
Rejoice, daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh. He is just and having salvation!
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