Prayer and Prophetic dreaming...the next installment

Quotes that have caught my eye:
What is life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
W. H. Davies
(and the first thing that pops into my mind is that if someone is caught standing and staring, that person will be diagnosed with some ailment. But I hardly believe my time spent standing and staring lately is a sign of mental illness nor an indication of long unrecognized birth defects.)

But more significant lately is this quote:
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus

Leave it to a real writer to say in 16 words what I needed volumes of words and days of blogging to express.

So what images are dancing in my head when I stare, when I contemplate that invincible summer? Ones like this picture:

A child on a horse, a child whose eyes are as deep as the cosmos and whose skin appears as a silver mist floating around his skull, this almost-man yet to be born looks at his mother and says, "Don't be afraid, Mother," then rides away. And the King looks at the mother and asks, "Will you give him to me?" Upon her acceptance of this offer, He says, "Then it is time for our relationship to become public." Taking her hand, they begin to walk.

Evidently, "public relationship" translates to be prophetic unction, a sign of heart-intimacy with God, on the plane of human expression. It rises like a rain storm, with small droplets striking and indeed proving wet as they strike places formerly bone dry. One here, one there, nothing that impressive. But in time larger ones come. And eventually a steady rain, with the promise of a coming deluge.

Things yet to be make visitation in dreamscapes, given in riddles and visual parables. And then those riddles define themselves as events unfurl that prove these prophecies grounded in truth. The steady rain continues such that rain no longer seems a change of weather.

But, now one large thundercloud looms on the horizon--one given in dreams to multiple recipients. For my part, a dream spoke of a terrible crash, a fall of one Powerful and not so very human. It was a series of dreams that seemed to reveal key figures in my little world, some figures evident, some not so much yet. They spoke of key times, this month being particularly featured. Finally, they begged themselves to be shared. So I shared them. One in particular, back when I had it in November. And in that sharing, I learned the commonality of my dream with revelations given to others. But then a dry spell. Many months of strain and no particular vision, prayer and waiting, then days of barely hanging on through times so fraught with hardship that the dream seemed quite distant. There was the corporate wondering, what sort of faith walk is this? None of us are of such a background as to be "spooky" types in our spirituality. The idea comes: why not just let it go. These dreams, maybe the ones that prove true may just be coincidence. And as the month progresses, the letting go seems easier every day.

But last night much came rushing back as I had a flashback to a time in the deep of winter, a time when one student faltered and was suspended for the remainder of the school year. After a month, this boy and his father begged that the boy be allowed to return early, professing that the boy's only hope of retaining his faith hung on his being given this second change.

At the time, the image that came into my mind was one used by ancient prophets: drink the cup of judgment until the very last dregs are drunk. At the time, the verse that popped into my mind was a prophetic one stating that in latter days, a dark Power would try to change laws and times in his power play against the Law of God. This boy's request seemed to mimic that prophecy, changing the law and the timing. To be honest, such a harsh response is unusual for me, as I am often a "softie" about disciplining kids. Just ask my husband. At first, the principle was inclined to refuse to change his position about the boy's return to school, but after much prayer, he decided that God wanted him to offer the boy that second chance. And to support him is the proverb that goes, "As the churning of milk produces butter, so the forcing of wrath produces strife." Who knows what strife was avoided by permitting this second chance?

The morning meeting in which the principle was to announce his decision, he was late to school due to car trouble. He handed the message off to be delivered by another, and that one asked me to read the scripture passage that motivated the principle to such extravagant grace. I wonder if any of them know how very much that series of events revealed a larger story, a larger and divine plan? We say--often without appropriate fervor--that all is going according to God's sovereign will, but do we really understand how minutely He can work circumstances to speak His wisdom to the powers and principalities of the heavens? In any case, the boy returned. But is he part of the April crisis I "saw" in my dream? I still don't know.

But this I do know. Something happened this weekend, and now my original dream and its telling are back on the front burner of my mind again. Last night, I dreamed I drank a cup of liquid laced with a strange metallic grit, like tiny beads, the size of pin-heads. And as I lifted the cup to take the last of it, the concentration of those beads grew so thick, I scrunched up my face and wondered if I could swallow the stuff. But because I knew I must drink, I did drink. And something in me knew it was a sign. Events were transpiring that would trigger the inevitable drinking to the dregs of that cup of judgment. And though it was not for any of us to command that judgment, judgment would come nonetheless. It would come by the hand of God Himself.

As for a prophetess being established in all these things. It may be a while before she is known by more than a handful of people. The next school year starts August 16. I think it will be then that a larger group of people called to recognize her may say that a prophet has been among them.

But when I consider all the dreams, and how their imagery is supposed to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, I feel so very small and inadequate. To have a Mind so beautiful, so poetic, so rich fashion images for you, images by which you are to share His nature with the world, it is daunting almost to the point of paralysis. How does one share such a thing of beauty?

How does one give a deaf man the concept of a symphony? Particularly if that deaf man doubts the existence of sound. How does one keep from ruining his witness by laughing at doubters; for to hear the doubter say he questions the existence of sound, how ridiculous it seems to one who has heard a lion's roar?

Oh, God, between You and me, I'd say that I know important things are happening in Your world, and I know You are elated to share the goodness of them with every hearing ear. Plant hearing ears, O God. And along with them, plant minds bright to interpret those Words when they are heard!

Thou shalt not covet...

I remember one of my grandfather's favorite jokes upon spying a car or some such thing that he especially admired; he'd say to my grandmother, "I wish I had that one and he had a better one." The joke being that by wishing better for the one you'd rob, you'd found a loophole in the non-covet stipulation imposed on the sanctified soul. Now I am nearly old enough to be a grandparent, and I too can joke about many things that at other points and times made me covet. For instance, I don't really envy someone who drives past me in a Jaguar, or swings a Coach purse, jaunty at the mall, etc. Yes, I figure that over the years I've come a long way in the "thou shalt not covet" department.

But today it strikes me, I still have a long way to go in the thou shalt not covet department. Oh, I don't covet those material objects anymore, true enough. I'm no longer flush with shame when someone sees me driving a junky old van or walking along with holes in my shoes. I don't even wonder anymore whether that lovely, polished lady over there is in some deep-hued, matching satin undergarments, while I'm in a sagging bra and a pair of my husband's cast-off, decades-old bikini underwear. (OK, that's telling way too much.) No. My coveting is not of that nature at all. Hence my failure to recognize it.

So what would I lay out for review in a confessional for those addicted to my sort of coveting? A story that springs from a parable, one that goes something like this:

Once there was to be a wedding amongst a people whose traditions were very different from ours; but in another sense, not that different.

The pre-nuptial nights were spent by those maids slated to be attendants gathered in a house, waiting, listening. Would the bridegroom come soon? If he came, they would go with him to the wedding, and their lamps would be lit and their singing would be divine.

One maiden sat, leaning against the wall. The room had become invisible to her, so long had she spent here, waiting. Too bright, too stark, too awkward--as people gathered for no other reason than to wait will often be awkward. So to pass the time, she closed her eyes and imagined the journey as if it were finally beginning. She imagined moving out into the darkness, the damp smells of cool night, and the quiet insects, and the cooing birds. She imagined the circle of light from her lamp as it floated before her, blanching everything but the path beneath her feet and the nearest singing partners. And then she imagined that singing, the soft soul songs that would make the long journey pass in but one heartbeat of time.

Her imaginings stopped there. She dared not think of the wedding itself, or her impatience would get the best of her. She opened her eyes and turned to her lamp, trimming its wick, checking its oil. Others near her slept or bickered. She couldn't see how they lost their hearts' focus on this night of all nights. She reminded them to keep an eye on their lamps; and often--upon realizing their lack of attention to the condition of their lamps--they would ask for a share of her oil. She knew and they knew, that she was a master of frugality. If anyone could make a little oil go a long way, it was her. So, out of what her heart considered to be compassion, she shared her oil. But eventually, even her oil looked skimpy. She wondered at the ones who still seemed to be at peace with plenty of oil. Why didn't these needy, audacious, desperate ones ever go to pester those peaceful ones for oil? But immediately she was ashamed for even having had the thought. She tried to hide, become a part of the mundane wall. She pretended not to notice when they looked prone to approach her. Finally, she said loudly, "I have no more oil to share!" Then they left her alone for a bit. But she saw a young one wilted on the floor, whimpering; and she knelt down beside her, even though she knew she was only inviting the strain to start all over again.

That fateful moment came, when a whispered word urgently spread like wildfire.
He is on his way.

She knew the ending of stories like this one. She knew the rule: you must have enough oil to light the journey, have enough or be left out. She feared she had failed, missed some divine appointment while doling our her pitiful supply, oh foolish pride! Did she think she was God, able to serve as supply for such a great need? For this alone, she deserved to be left in the empty house, watching through the doorway the disappearing backs of the joyful wedding party.

Then, she did the only thing she knew to do. She began to pray. And a small voice said, "Remember the widow's oil."

The Widow at Zarephath
8 Then the Lord said to Elijah, 9 "Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. There is a widow there who will feed you. I have given her my instructions."
10 So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, "Would you please bring me a cup of water?" 11 As she was going to get it, he called to her, "Bring me a bite of bread, too."
12 But she said, "I swear by the Lord your God that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die."
13 But Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid! Go ahead and cook that `last meal,' but bake me a little loaf of bread first. Afterward there will still be enough food for you and your son. 14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There will always be plenty of flour and oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!"
15 So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her son continued to eat from her supply of flour and oil for many days. 16 For no matter how much they used, there was always enough left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.

On Being a Hummingbird...

My husband just made a job change--not career change per se, but change of employment. Now I am considering the same thing. At first, I was adamant about feeling called to leave the place where I work now. I felt compelled to find something less stressful and less likely to expose me to so many people every day as this year my health took a downward spike due to my "catching" every bug that came anywhere near me, a thing that I find happening a lot since my thyroidectomy and fibromyalgia diagnosis. At the same time, I know my superintendent has been praying heartily that God might open a door for me to stay and continue the band program. It is a position that--until a program is well-established--is hard to fill.

All that is really clear to me now is that no matter what I do, I am supposed to be more singularly focused and slower paced than I've been this year. Currently I teach middle school math, high school drama, elementary school band and middle school computers. The diversity is proving to be stretching me too thin. Preparation for and energy demands during all these classes are stretching me to a snapping point.

What I've learned from a couple of articles that have "randomly" come into my bathroom reading material:

First, quotes from an article called "Direct Your Attention" in Experience Life Magazine, a monthly publication put out by my health club, which is a place I never have time to go anymore, because if I go there, I can't be doing anything else but that. But to this, the article says:
"Forget multitasking. Forget autopilot. The biggest rewards come from skillfully focusing our attention on just one thing at a time...Paying focused attention to one--and only one--thing at a time can yield rich rewards...Attention is like a flashlight. When we use it in the most efficient way, we shine the narrow beam of light on a single object, and we can see it clearly." It goes on to note that "in our fast-paced, high-demand world," our multifaceted brains often feel driven to attention splitting activity. One of the most common ways we split our attention is when we try to do one external focus activity (help a kid with homework) at the same time we do an internal focus one (grade papers and/or make a shopping list, etc.) I am SO guilty of this type of thing! "When we split our attention in this way--giving half our focus over to our own internal landscape, we tend to miss a lot of what is coming at us." What's more "we are less capable of enjoying the beauty around us. We also suffer because our attention gravitates toward the future or past, instead of remaining in the present."
Three large obstacles to retraining our focus: self-preoccupation--andthat being not selfishness so much as "what do I need to do now" type self-preoccupation, passive entertainment, and multi-tasking.
Nice to know I'm not the only one who has these obstacles laying prominently around. But boy, do I have them!

As for the second resource guiding my reflections on change, it is a little meditation book, Everyday Serenity, by David Kundtz. As I delve further into it's text, I'm sure I'll have many more quotes I'd take from it, but for starters, I'll just note one thing he quoted and review his reflection on it. "There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.--Milan Kundera." Kundtz says of this quote: "My guess is that they are secret because we have not noticed them before. As recently as a generation ago, these bonds were a common, intuitive understanding. People lived their lives with a conscious realization of the balance between slowness and remembering, between speed and forgetting. They knew that leisure was a necessary part of a balanced life. They knew that if you moved too fast you were bound to forget something." Now, to me, that "forgetting" represents lost efficiency, lost joy, lost relationships--not just a lost set of keys, although lost keys do happen a lot at my house.

I remember once reading a book on spiritual discipline by Stephen Foster in which this subject was handled from an economic bent. He proposed that capitalism, by its very nature, demands constant expansion or else as a system it must die. The problem was that we are no longer an expanding country, not in terms of either geography nor population. Therefore, the expansion must occur in each individual life--expand the hours of productivity, expand credit to keep people buying goods to keep pressing the market back into a state of growth. Now I'm no economist, but I can certainly see a change from my parents' lives to mine in terms of an "economy" that invades more and more of my so-called "free" time, more than it did theirs. I remember long summers--open time for both me and my dad, who was a teacher. Now schools are talking about going an extra two hours a day and an extra five weeks a year in response to this "expansion" mind-set. The answer is no longer to look at the quality of instruction, but to simply increase its quantity and make some hopeful assumptions about the outcome of that expansion. And I am noticing this as a teacher. Many believe the teachers would not promote the opinion that the quality of instruction at school needs to go up even as the accountability for a student's good attitude needs to go up at home. But many teachers I know do say these things. Unfortunately, most decisions about most things are driven by the economy. The almighty dollar, as they say. But, everything I'm reading lately about these types of expansion and the double, sometimes triple-duty such expansion requires (how else do you get it all done, for God's sake?) is that any benefits are killed by the costs. Lost health, lost efficiency, lost personal engagement--we deceive ourselves by trying to do what "always worked before." It only works if you have room to grow, and we don't. So now what?

In my little part of the world what does it mean? It means I learn to do with less materially speaking and hope my country's need for that 12-14 hour day from me isn't as desperate as it is presented to me. I will in exchange rediscover what it feels like to be 100% involved in any given moment. To give my all to one thing instead of a little bit to many things. I will get my health back, my peace back, my family back, my desire to wake up and face a new day back. Most of all, I will confirm to myself and to the world that I can and do make a committment of 100% of myself to something, anything.

Years ago, God, You inspired a friend to pray for me, and she prayed that I quit trying to be a hummingbird, that I let You make me an eagle instead. (My husband saw her just today, in fact, and to see her is a rarity for us.) I should call her and thank her again for listening to You, for praying in the face of my need then. Thank You that You are not truly finished with a prayer until it is completely answered. Her prayer is still wafting up to You, for I still need even now. Maybe this time when I try to make a change, it will stick!

A woman of influence

I played my part in the drama this morning. I was permitted to focus on the sponge of my choice--of your choice. I was permitted to enlarge the tent of focus broader than to look solely at the sponge that would deaden Your senses with its anesthetic, but rather on the one that was given in answer to Your thirst. Thank You for that.

It is a difficult thing, to be a woman of redeemed influence. Often times, I expect she appears strange whenever she fulfills her most sincere role in life. The Eldredge's state in the book, Captivating, that "Eve is God's relationship specialist given to the world to keep relationship a priority. Men have a way of letting these things slip. They'll go months without checking in on the health of their relationships. Years, even. And the World simply uses people, then spits them out when they are worn out and no longer 'on top of their game.' Our Enemy despises relationships, hates love in any form, fears its redemptive power. This is why God sent Eve. Women are needed to protect relationships, bring them back to center stage where they belong."

So in retrospect of this little drama and the study it solicited from me I see that I could have turned all my attention to the sponge that represented the threat to Your mission as the Son of God. But I am Eve. So instead I was drawn to the one that represented Your mission as Husband to a Bride.

There is such a delicate balance to it all. Both sponges--whether drugged or not--bore as a base liquid sour wine mixed with water. I have tasted wine that has been too long in the refrigerator. It is indeed quite bitter. So I think of that first sponge when I read these words from Isaiah, for it surely would seem sweet mercy to be given anesthetic elixir, to have that small measure of physical comfort at the onset of such agony as a crucifixion; but He knew better than to submit to that. And, that the Cross happened at all is a large testimony of how very much dark and light, evil and good were confused in the hearts of the powerful:

Isa 5:20

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

But I think of the second sponge as I read the words of Solomon. Humbly, I thank You for allowing Yourself to awaken to the full depths of Your hunger, rather than determining that Your soul was full while You were yet alone and while we were yet a sweetness waiting to be tasted. I thank You for being hungry enough for Us that You would see the sweetness hidden in such a bitter thing as the Cross.
Pro 27:7
The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.

May we learn to return Your humble longing. You are worthy of such adoration, and more.

Praise Him All Creatures Here Below

Just the other day, I had a woman ask me, "Do you have a 'word from God' for me? And because I thought I did, I told her what was on my heart, even though for a long time--and even now, to hear such a phrase (a word from God) ruffles my religious feathers a bit. But the phrase is coming to be healed as the answer becomes more often "yes" these days. And now I think I have a word from God for another friend. He hasn't asked for it, but I feel inclined to share it nonetheless. His name is Ben.

Ben is the worship leader at our church, and I have worshipped God under his leadership countless times. If I were to string adjectives together about worship as Ben leads it, I'd use words like deep, cleansing, rich, uplifting, intimate, solicitous of revelation from God. But these are words about me and my feelings, and I am just the messenger. This is more of a message from God to Ben.
This morning, I came across this verse that seems a fitting opening and spurred me on to write:

Jhn 14:21
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Jhn 14:22
Judas saith unto him, (not Iscariot), Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

Jhn 14:23
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

How will you manifest yourself unto us and not to the world? A valid question. You, Ben, offer one of the ways it is answered.

I have sung under the leadership of many worship leaders in my days. I've sung under the lead of red-faced men in suits standing in a pulpit, one hand holding a hymnal, the other gesturing as they sang. I've sung to young skinny guys who stomp their foot as they play an electric piano or guitar for themselves. All very different, but one thread seems common to them: they lead alone. The back-up singers, if there be any at all, are at best a faint echo of harmony in the speakers that if you lean in and listen very closely, you might catch a whiff of from time to time. That's at best. At worst, these other singers are just mute working mouths--utterly lost behind the cranked lead voice of the worship head. In fact, not that long ago, I happened to be around while a worship band was tearing down after a service. One of the back-up singers was literally shouting with joy about how beautiful the harmony sounded in the monitor. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the monitor was the only place that harmony was heard. Worshippers saw him sing from the depths of his soul, but we heard absolutely nothing.

But then there is the music that Ben calls into being. Ben usually has only one back-up singer, a woman harmonizing in perfect balance with him. Sometimes he sings alone, but her presence is ever known. You can close your eyes in worship, and yet you know she is there--because she plays a vital part, she is heard!

Why does this matter? If our worship is a reflection, then God looks down on Ben and sees the reflection of His Son glorifying His name. That Son has a counterpart, a Bride--as He calls her--in the church. It has been much on my mind lately--this idea of our expectations as we look at our lives in heaven. So often we anticipate it as a place where many individuals will experience blissful existence, but to see ourselves as Christ's ezer kenegdo, His Eve, His Bride this is a rare focus. And the rarity gives evidence that the full incarnation of that Bride is not yet ready. She is not yet mature; she is still self-absorbed. For contemporary singers to sing only into their own monitors matches this premature view of our significance in heaven. We want to be there, but, our expectation is that Christ will be all that is really heard. We don't believe His love for us goes deep enough to offer us an opportunity to sing in balanced harmony with Him.

On the flip side, some will sing of the excellence of God in intricate blended harmony, but to the underlying effect of saying, "You people should love the skill within me, put on display in the context that I sing about God." This, too, is still self-absorbed and falls short of the mark.

Christ speaks of us as joint-heirs, and I don't think by that He means "I'll put a mike in your hands, but to no effect. You can look good, but my voice is the only one to be heard." Nor does He say, "I'll give you a voice so beautiful that I will fall into the background and your beauty and talent will become the primary focus." (If that were to be the case, then Lucifer's designs that brought his own fall would have been justified.)

Christ doesn't fall off the edge of the sword of truth in either direction, nor do you, Ben; and in that way you give a purer reflection of heavenly worship than most. God is pleased and Christ has certainly made His abode with you!

Eyes that See, Ears that Hear

Approaching Easter, I am looking at the writing of my script about the offering of the sponge. And, I hit a minor crisis. Because I identified myself (and all the Bride-Church along with me) as like the sponge in the prayer-scenario I mentioned previously, I hit a very personal distress when a verse from another Gospel was brought to my attention:

Mat 27:33-35
And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,
They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted [thereof], he would not drink.
And they crucified him...

This seemed to contradict what I read in John, where He almost seemed to be asking for a drink--"I thirst," He said in that Gospel. Furthermore, my personal anthropomorphization of the sponge naturally ran me toward a new self-perception of one reaching the apex of self- rejection. (This temptation was easily presented to me, considering the thoughts I blogged yesterday--ugly self-images I'd fanned back to life so I could deal with them.) How easy to make me think that I was foolishly believing things that, though they seemed so "real" and "interactive" between Thee and me, were really just so much pomposity on my part. Again, I fell shame-faced at Your feet and begging wisdom, for I would never want to dishonor You.

But I felt compelled to persevere in my reading. (In fact it was a thing I felt prompted to pray in this very morning's prayer time: ask for knowledge.) Now, wonder of wonders, I find the story of the sponge was not finished in that verse.
How many times have I read the story of the Crucifixion? Many!
How many times have I noticed that the sponge is offered twice and accepted only on the second, purer offering? None!
But it is in plain print. (Text given below.)

In fact, looking back I see that the drugged sponge might very well have been offered before He was even nailed to that cross. An anesthetic sponge is offered to lessen His pain--and thus once more Satan needs to be told to get behind Him. He tastes it to discern what is on it, but this one He rejects. Afterward, the Pharisees mock Him, the sign calling Him King of the Jews is posted above His head, the thieves are mentioned, darkness falls over the land from the 6th hour to the 9th hour,...then at last He cries out that quote that begins Psalm 22, and to starts a series of events that make that Psalm almost an exact pre-telling of the events of the Cross. But the people around Him did not understand.

Mat 27:46
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Mat 27:47
Some of them that stood there, when they heard [that], said, This [man] calleth for Elias.

Mat 27:48
And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled [it] with vinegar, and put [it] on a reed, and gave him to drink.

Mat 27:49
The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.

Mat 27:50
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

So how did I miss this second sponge for these last 43 years that I have been present in this world to hear this story of the Cross? That sponge that carried only the sour wine/vinegar, and not the drug, gall; this second one lifted on hyssop, said John (and hyssop was a branch used symbolically for things involving purification.)

But more startling is my discovery of some of the rest of that pre-telling Psalm.
I've already mentioned the common references:

His quote right before receiving the sponge:
Psa 22:1
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? [why art thou so] far from helping me, [and from] the words of my roaring?

The words of the Pharisees, foreshadowed centuries earlier:
Psa 22:8
He trusted on the LORD [that] he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

The one He fulfilled in speaking of His thirst:
Psa 22:15
My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

And this:
Psa 22:18
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

But because of the sponge-thing, I can hardly condemn the Pharisees for missing all these ways that He fulfilled all these things prophesied about His death.

And I must ask, are we missing things still?

For now I come to the part that makes me tremble as I read over with new eyes even more things that I haven't noticed before today, things new that should not be new, for my eyes have traveled over these verses time and time again.

As preface, I must review that I dreamed (and have blogged here about the dream) that dogs chased me to the gate of a special garden, a holy place where He fed me the fruit of wisdom and life. I dreamed that the dogs could not reach me in that place--and this was the point of the dream. I already connected that dream with imagery in Revelation, and I already recovered from the shock of "dreaming scripture images."
Now I must add that the other night, I had another dog dream...actually the creature was a cross between a bulldog and a horse. It was spotted, black and white, with a black mane and nose like a horse, but the shoulders and build of a bulldog.

(An aside to easily skip:
Even as I proofread this, I remember and look up the story of a vision of the prophet, Zechariah that makes reference to grisled--translate spotted--horses pulling chariots coming to earth from heavenly dwelling places, and this as an event to occur right before the revelation of one called the Branch. This lead me to the little book of Jude which talks in verse 23 of ones saved with fear, pulled out of the fire, their garments "spotted" by the influence of their flesh, which then returns me to another one of the visions Zechariah had of God rebuking Satan for trying to condemn a chosen one, one described as a brand plucked from the fire--whose filthy garments are exchanged by an Angel for rich robes, and this exchange being precursory to the coming of that same one called the Branch. The chase I make through Scripture to track these parallels leads me to realize I've tapped another one of those wells that is larger than a quick read will explain to my mind. I haven't had one of these guided reads for a long time, but I do remember telling God, "Slower please. My mind can't accept where we're going and what You're explaining as quickly as You can offer it." No wonder I prayed for knowledge! Just an aside to record the mechanics of such an interchange.)

But as to my own dream of a spotted horse, this animal and I stood in open fields on either side of a fence. The animal was trying to break through a breach in that chicken wire fence. Somehow, I received a tool that I could use to re-attach the fallen piece of fencing, keeping the animal on its own side of the fence.

Now I read this verse:

Psa 22:12
Many bulls have compassed me: strong [bulls] of Bashan have beset me round.

Psa 22:16
For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

and most importantly, this one:

Psa 22:20
Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.

And I find my prayers and these dreams that I dreamed coming together to take on a meaning that makes me almost stop breathing. Even as I try to minimize, explain away and second guess the motivation and imagery of these moments I share with Thee, You do not permit me to lessen our relationship to something coldly analytical or to mere subconscious reactivity. I cannot speak much to the ways You call Your other elect to walk with Your Word alive within them, but I do see how through the channels of this one small heart of mine, humanity's reach for You can be realized. You prayed for me, even me, and for all who come to this place where I stand.

As I soak in the meaning of that knowledge, I feel flung backward to the OT, when Jezebel is eaten by dogs. Flung forward to the visionary ending of the NT, when the spirit of Jezebel revisits this world, and finally to another "Chapter 22" but this time not in Psalms, but in Revelation where a last reference is made to dogs, protection, a last message is given to the Church involving the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star. (And as I read this quote, I am reminded that two days ago, we took a spring-break outing, the boys and I. As we drove, we noticed the fact that we kept seeing stars mounted everywhere we went. Metal ones near door posts, ones made of Christmas lights still hung high on barns, even painted ones in the signs set out to advertise mom-and-pop businesses, so many stars that we laughed and commented on its oddity.) Finally, coming full circle, the quote is about the Spirit and the bride saying Come, and--it is about thirsting. How fitting that the bride would say come, with a quenched thirst being what follows.

Rev 22:14
Blessed [are] they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

Rev 22:15
For without [are] dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

Rev 22:16
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, [and] the bright and morning star.

Rev 22:17
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

Letting You See the Hidden Places

My husband, I write this mostly for me to track my own growth in this thing, but also for you to see what is happening inside me.
A book by the title Love Is a Choice made revolutionary changes in my life when my first marriage was ending...but it didn't go quite far enough to kill the curse bound up in it, too.

The blessing: love is a choice I make, so I am not driven by the tides of emotion and the rawness of desire. I have the power to decide the way I will relate to the significant others in my world. This I understood from the book, and the benefits of this understanding reached larger than my own mind and soul.

The curse: love is a choice others make, and in their choosing with regards to me, I am ever reminded of my second-best status. In one relationship after another, from the time I was my youngest son's age until this very day, it has been "proven" to me over and over that my value is tied up in my acceptance of this role: that I must be ever striving for the benefit of others. This striving is itself the housing for my intrinsic value. When I was young, I learned I am not the "captive princess" so desirable that she must be rescued at all costs. For many young girls, this is not only the fantasy, but also the reality. No, I was taught to be part of the team of rescuers. In this role, I just might receive a medal of honor if I serve valiantly to improve the life of one or the lives of many, those who really matter. And while it is noble to choose this role in the drama of interactive life, it is another thing entirely to be given no choice...others are the choosers. Nevertheless, if I have ever balked at my positioning, I was told that I was being selfish or that this was not really about me anyway.

Now as I read Captivating, I find myself studying these things. Remembering the hard memories, the bittersweet ones. A little at a time goes a long way. Like this one:

As a young child, what princess-fantasies did you have?

All little girls have some type of fantasy of being a beauty, and I was no different. But even at that young age, I had the instinct to remove others from my fantasy world. At least I understood that my imagination was a domain of my own, and that may have been the greatest early gift of grace I ever received. If others would never invite Cinderella out of the kitchen and to the ball, well then they simply weren't in the story. Really, the only place this type of fantasy expressed itself in my life was when I went walking in the woods alone, as I often did when a 'tweener. I'd imagine myself in a elvish castle inhabited by mythical woodland creatures--they were safe enough characters, as they were not human and thus not in competition with me for significance. This was an easy set for the drama given the stone stairs and paths in the state parks near where I lived and given the solitary nature of my walks. Or I imagined I was following a magical woodsman who was taking me to become his bride, the lady of his secret estate, a place hidden deep in the wilds and unknown to all because of its remoteness.

As I look at the things happening in my prayer life now, I am compelled to ask: were my childhood fantasies evidence of that deep-awareness that children seem to have? Was I, even as a child, walking in unspoken prayer-communion with the God who would later put a call on my life that renewed the purpose of these fantasies? Or is my current prayer life just an outgrowth of unresolved childhood pain? I see why You have been so interactive with me through all this, God. Otherwise I probably would dismiss much of what has been our recent relationship as just a sign of "wounded sickness" and the indulgence of a presently-effective defense mechanism.

So now, I will learn how to articulate what You've been trying to show me these last few months. Before I even picked up this book or started along this train of thought, You began weaving Your cocoon around me, made plain that day You reduced me to tears in the grocery store. You drew me toward a sign of a girl holding a rope--so much like that dream You gave me where I swung on a rope--"This is you," You seemed to say of the sign, and how much more fitting now that it was a little girl holding the rope. The text with the picture said, "Let's show her she's beautiful." The ad was selling soap, but that was beside the point for me. Still, even that fits: for a cleansing is indeed happening.

When I was younger--
(and if I traveled
in the spring)
I would sometimes shun a stop
if it were but to see some odd landmark
or mysterious marker
"off the beaten path."
Shun the stop, that is,
If winter's bite still held the air.

When I was younger--
I wanted my spring
fast and hot.
Let its prelude be brief, if sacred; and
play no overture at all if something less.

A splash of yellow flowers, yellow bushes
buds on the branches
--a day or so is ample--
And finally--
Finally?
--the pass to long days
of shimmering heat waves rising,
while tall grasses sigh and glow
in newborn sheen
under full-gold sunlight.
A "cold snap" in the foreground of such glory?
How should it foster anything gracious and tolerant?

But I am older now,
I will stop for such a sight
(if I travel in the spring.)
I will leave the dry, blowing artificial heat
inside my car.

I get out.
I shiver, and I look.
For some things along the way catch my fancy,
even when spring has its snow on.

I am not old yet,
but I am old enough to wear this wisdom:
heat looses its freshness, quickly
and novelty reverts. Then what?
Another year before another visit.
So I--like everyone--still sigh and raise closed eyes to that first warm breeze, but--
I rarely grieve the return of a chill wind.

When this life's alluring changes
prove more of the past than of the future,

In this place, an early flirtation with deep spring:
It is a good thing made better
by a later underscoring.

There Is Room at the Cross...

...so go lyrics of an old hymn, if memory serves.

The more I fall in love with You, the more I wish I could climb up on that Cross with You, and not because I have some Messiah complex; but rather because You have planted a compassion in my heart that reaches back to You. I would climb up there to give You a focal point in that period when the Father had to turn away from You. My sinful past grants me a strange liberty to be with You when You were alone that way, to that very last moment of your human-body consciousness. And I entertained a prayer-visualization of as much...one with that strange way of ending, going outside my self-determined day-dreaming. I saw myself with You, beseeching You to keep me as a focal point much like a birthing coach would direct the woman in labor to focus on the picture or teddy bear or baby gown that she brought with her to the hospital. Focus on that thing that keeps her striving toward the goal rather than losing herself to the pain. I put myself, and all the Church with me, in that role. "Focus here!" I cried. And after an anguished roll of Your head to look up at me, You said, "It is finished," and gave up the ghost, as they say. I didn't anticipate Your last words finding a place in the dream-prayer.

So I looked in Scripture to see what happened on that Cross just before You said those famous words. In the book of John it says:

Jhn 19:26
When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!

Jhn 19:27
Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own [home].

Jhn 19:28

After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.

Jhn 19:29
Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put [it] upon hyssop, and put [it] to his mouth.

Jhn 19:30
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

Up until that fateful moment, Your words continued to be for the benefit of others--but somehow to fulfill scripture in that last moment You spoke a personal need. It was that moment of Your death that my spirit felt drawn to join. "I thirst," You said. They lifted the sponge to You.

But then over time, I came to wonder whether such an offer of myself as that source of comfort in Your moment of need, was it too full of audacity? Would it offend that pinnacle moment of Your humanity to have a sinner attempt to bring You comfort in Your agony? Was it a distraction rather than a peace? Was it, beneath it all, just me seeking one more affirmation that I have profound and deep relationship with You? So I told You I would renounce the prayer-dream if it offends Thee.

But last night I received a phone call.
Our church is presenting a special service for the children on Easter morning. It has a pack of a dozen eggs for a theme. As each egg is "cracked open" an item falls out that is a tangible reminder of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection so the children might learn. The call came from the man directing the drama.

"I have one role not yet cast. I don't even have the script written for it," he said. "I kept going through my list of drama volunteers trying to find someone, and then your name popped into my mind, like you were the one who was supposed to take the discussion of this item.
Would you be the one to talk about the sponge?" he asked.
My prayer stands as originally made.

And the gift goes on...another year

A year ago, I wrote of my youngest one under the above title. Today, I feel inclined to write of him again.

He never knew my mother as a flesh and bone woman, but he knows my mother in spirit. When fitting, I tell him the funny and engaging stories from her life, and in that way he comes to know her.

A few nights ago, we were "cuddling" on my bed just before his bedtime, something we do frequently. It is a thing precious to us both--an unadulterated joy to him, but one tinged bittersweet for me, as I know how short-lived these moments are, what with him now 6-years-old. On this particular night, we had one of those talks about his grandmother. As we talked, we went to that place visited by most mothers and young sons when those sons discover the chasm that exists between the living and the beloved dead. Those sons look to their mothers to build some sort of bridge across the chasm: and so we flew ahead to that moment when he will meet her, at the gates of heaven. For a child to consider such a thing is no great feat; to him it is perfectly natural.

As we were speaking of what it might be like--that day when we are all reunited for all eternity, I was sitting propped against my headboard and he was wallowing all around the bed. But he paused on hands and knees just beside me, lifted his head to look me deep in the eye and laughed an open, deep laugh, an utterly free laugh almost never heard but where it is ringing from the throat of a small child.

"I can't wait to die," he said gleefully, and then dropped down to put his head on my shoulder.

I wonder what life would be like if we could all still see heaven with the eyes of a child?

Strange Pilgrimage...conclusion

How does a dream end that runs a course like this one has?
When I've seen this sort of ending in movies, I usually think them frustrating due to the lack of resolution...

So You and I entered yet another covenant--strange and unexpected, but full of a sort of spiritual logic that made sense to me and seemed designed to protect me. But at this point in the story, You seemed to pull away, and the darkness began to lift. Was itgrayness that invaded the dark? The dawn of a new light? A fog? None of these descriptors seemed quite right. Then I happened upon this idea: blankness, and that felt closer to right.

I entered a blank place that brought with it a sensation best described as relief. From the pest-ridden outer edge just this side of the safe garden, forward through the zone of sorrowful lost souls, to the deepest place, that which housed the un-remembering forsaken. All of the burdens unique to each phase of the pilgrimage--the accumulating soul-weight of these associations--it lifted; and a sense of rest took its place. But I found no vision here at the end of my journey, only a vague feeling of being finished with the worst of it. Anything meant to serve as an aftermath, well it waslost in that fog.

I waited, kept looking. Nothing. There was no more to the story.

But a few days later, I came across this verse:
To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:...
...He hath made every [thing] beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Eccl. 3 : 1, 11

No one sees from beginning to end. No one.
Any other ending would belie the whole experience.
I was satisfied.

Strange Pilgrimage, part 4

All went pitch black as I went deeper. No vestiges of light on tragic faces. And here I felt compelled to remind You, "You've been talking in my ear all along, but here it is so dark I have no idea what is around me. You said You'd come after me. I'm thinking now would be a good time to show up--"

Immediately, something akin to the glow of a black light threw a purplish wash over me. In that light, I saw no "enviroment" per se but I did see things moving around me.

I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.

Such are the words You spoke to Isaiah, maybe when You took him to such a place as this one. For I sought You in a dark place, and my search for You was not vain even here. Were it not for You, I would nothave known how to comprehend these creatures that moved around me. That they had spirit I felt, but nothing else gave them any remaining semblance of humanity. The closest I could come to a physical description of them would be to say them undulating, oozing blobs of formless spirit matter. Here a tumor swelled up, there a patch of knobby flesh stretched and receded, and all of it rolling (for lack of a better word for their mode of perambulation) through the purple-lit space around me.

Many such beings came and went; and as I studied them, I realized they evoked a different feeling within me than those first souls had stirred. These beings simply existed now, and thus drew no aching ropes of compassion from my inward self. They wandered in and out of the purple spot light that surrounded me without the slightest awareness of me or the light. They simply oozed and wandered, making glugging sounds.

You let me observe them for a while; and then straight away, You voice was in that black-light above me, and You began to "declare things that are right."

"This is where I'll hide you when the time comes," You said.
"Here!?!" I responded, and in my mind there was nothing to recommend this place. I could almost see being placed among the ones that still bore some semblance of their former human life, but these woke little more than revulsion in me.
"Stop and think about it, " You said. "These beings are so far removed from their days brushing shoulders with grace-carriers that they have lost all their power of recognition for one such as you."
And the wisdom began slowly to dawn on me. "So they don't even remember what would serve for common spiritual history with me?"
"It was the last gift of grace they were able to receive," You said. "Here, they can't see you as a source of interaction. They don't really see anything as potential for interaction as you know it. All remembrance of anything that could serve as fabric for relationship--all that has decayed completely in them. So among them, you are as good as invisible."
"But how does this place hide me? Is this not 'his' territory?" I asked, my forehead still in a furrow.
"The Dragon?" You said, as You smiled a strange smile. "In the first place, he'd hardly believe I'd hide you here. In the second, he's done his job too well. He has so filled this place that it has swelled to vast dimensions; and since he is not so omniscient as he'd like to think, he could hardly afford to spend the time looking for you. Like a needle in a haystack you'd be, as they say. As a result, he'll resign himself to attempts on your life in the actual world, but that will prove futile as well. If I were to hide you in that earlier place of lost souls, he might stand a chance of finding you. Those beings might still be able to remember enough to recognize in you the glow that is fading in them. They might report such a strange sight. But not these. This deep, your life-light is unrecognizable. "
(And I remember again Isaiah's words about longing to remember God.)

We watched them mill around us a little while longer, and I realized that I was not afraid in this place. No suffocating panic as in the 'pestilence' place and and no overbearing ache as in the first realm of lost souls--none of these weighed on me in this place, only an alien strangeness that was heavy but not unbearable. To be so far removed from the peace that is graced to all in the form of a morning star, a summer breeze, a sun-glittered snow--the utter absence of such peace was heavy, but tolerable in the context that I was but on pilgrimage.

When You spoke once again, You referred to a dream You gave me once long ago, a dream where I "saw" Lucifer and was tempted to feel sympathy for him; for I could ascertain, although not quite spiritually "see" the loss of his former glory, a loss so obvious within his now-broken framework. Where once he was blinding to gaze upon, the ultimate, creative masterpiece channel for the light that is God: to see him was to see brilliant glowing prisms of light shooting through him and beyond across the highest heavens; but, now there remained nothing than a sticky brown death mucking his surface, disallowing all passage of light through his being. The huge arcs that were once his thundering, crackling spirit wheels were now nothing but broken shells. When I had that dream long ago, You told me that You would not show me plainly his former glory; for were I to see the full range of that beauty lost, I would be all the more tempted to feel sympathy, and it was not the time for sympathy toward him. Now as we gazed on these creatures, You brought back to mind that natural pull toward sympathy wired into still-living mankind...I wondered what consitituted the lake of fire.

"You see now, why these 'lost' ones are not to be regarded with pity, not in the sense of the reconciliation still available to the living. Their choice of path, choice of allegiance, choice of indulgence, however you wish to perceive and define that choice--it has taken them to an existence that can no longer even desire or remember what is lost. For them to even remember would be an indication that the God they resolutely rejected is still imposing His presence upon them, for He is the author of the law that condemns and therefore points to Him. To be able to perceive the concept of having an existence of value implies things like growth, hope, and respect for what is good--to have such perception would put a little bit of God still in them."

And even though You didn't say it, I wondered about that last "sympathy" for the devil that You restrained me from feeling in that former dream. I wondered if the same grace that allowed these to 'forget' what they abandoned would ultimately reach even to him...making him no longer cognizant. Could he lose the "feel" not only of his current adversarial relationship with You, the Intercessor, but also with the just Father, in whose presence he has so long stood, accusing so many--from Job in ancient days to that firebrand who is yet to be? I remembered the verse about one who looks in the mirror but immediately forgets his reflection when he looks away. God has been just such a mirror for him--showing Lucifer who he is, who he was--but when the last reflection of all former things is removed, will even Lucifer forget? It is a wisdom beyond my capacity to perceive. But I think on this:

For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Would the grace of this "failure to remember" reach even into the realm of its negative image? Extend even to those who rejected the offer to inhabit these new heavens and new earth? But these things, I simply pondered in my heart. And again, Isaiah whispered in my ear. With but a few words, he recounted my entire pilgrimage, from the time I found myself outside those iron gates that shielded me to a place that--strangely--offered even safer shielding, safer because You'd been there before me, and knew the path I should take:
Isa 45:2
I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:

Isa 45:3
And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call [thee] by thy name, [am] the God of Israel.

They are words that have served as a protective glaze over many a life...and now over mine, too.

One more day and the story will all be told. For every pilgrimage must reach its end, and every pilgrim must leave the foreign land where he travels or else make himself one with the natives.

Strange Pilgrimage, part 3

How does one describe a venture into that realm of darkness where one encounters newly lost souls, the ones freshly aware of their state of being?
An atmosphere of anguish?
A constant throb of loneliness?
A desperate grasp to clutch and not forget that thing too fast slipping from their memory: hope?

In fact, much of what they knew was fleeting, for with the loss of God they had lost the well-spring of all wisdom, humor, foresight...
The only thing they still seemed to clasp firmly was the lingering awareness that all was not well with them, never would be well again...

They were faintly visible, like glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on a child's wall or pictures woven into his little t-shirt--the glow that offers a last remnant of a previous exposure to light. And as they drifted near me, they reached for me, but not like creatures in a horror film would do. Not with a zombie's mindlessness nor a demon's viciousness; more with the grasp a drowning swimmer tries to put on the confident strokes of a strong one. But the sudden panic that struck me at the sight of their ghostly hands soon faded; for gone was any internal force once bestowed by grace for the benefit of direction and guidance. And so moaning, they swiftly forgot why they craved the nearness of me, and they drifted away. In fact, like a desert of wind-blown tumbleweed they moved with a randomness that told the depths of their loss: no remaining sense of purpose and no valuable memory.
Yet having these tragic creatures see me at all made these verses wash over me in deeper hue as I happen across them a few days later:

Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish, and they will be driven into darkness. Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. Isaiah 8:22-9:2

But no sooner had I found my footing in this place when the unction came: go deeper.

Strange Pilgrimage...part 2

To go into darkness because of lust shows one driven by instinct.
To go into darkness because of rage shows one driven by pride.
To go into darkness to seek an exchange of the real light for the spiritual strange-light shows one tempted to hyper-calculation in the cosmic game, but..
To go into the darkness on Commissioned pilgrimage? What does that show?

"You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."

These words echo in my mind as I wander into this dark unknown.
These words, too, become more real:
"The desire of our soul is for Your name and for the remembrance of You."

I am struck by Your timing. Months we spent, feeling stalled in a fiery pit of affliction. Then in a flash, we came to understand it.

Only a few days have passed since we came to see, and then found in Scripture, the words that explain the course of this fire You sent. And that fire has been like the electric leap from one nerve cell to another in the brain-- and it has been like these waters of affliction You poured on us served as a conductor for that electric leap, taking us to the place that defines Your purpose.

Only a few days have we understood that we might stand in the position of the just as You demonstrate this truth:
"O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just.
Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for you;
...With my soul I have desired You in the night,
Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early;
For when Your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness."

And it is an honor to be so placed by Your hand, but on the heels of the discovery of this positioning comes the call to move on, the push to send us to a new place.

So I walk into the dark, and the dark feels familiar in bad ways; like dark felt in the days before You knew me for purposes of Your own, before I could stand naked with the just and be unashamed. First, in this dark, I meet up with a pestilence...flies, locusts? Hard to tell in the pitch black. But they buzz around me, prompting me to thrash and bat at them. And I wonder, do they represent the days I am coming out of even now? The days just after time spent so palpably real in Your garden? But You are already speaking into my mind the reasons why I must go even deeper into this darkness:
"Let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness."

I go away from Your garden for two reasons. The first, that I might serve as example of the results of grace. In this task, I follow in the footsteps of my Savior wherever He might go, even to the "depths of Sheol." Where He went to proclaim Himself the author of all righteousness that springs from faith in Him, I now follow to proclaim Him finisher of the same. But I know from the visions spoken by prophets in days long gone, this "evidence" will not bear fruit, even in the words echoing from Isaiah's text above. Still, the law and the testimony must be fulfilled, so I march on. And the flying pests begin to dissipate.

I go forward for two reasons. The second, that I have a place in the wilderness to find, a place prepared for me by God. So on a personal level, my pilgrimage relates to the finding of this hiding place. I must know--in God's world of visions at least--where that place is, must know it in my belly before I ever walk into it in this life's actualities. And while in this dream-prayer my pilgrimage is played on the symbolic and spiritual plane (and therefore appears quite fantastic compared to the way it will play in actuality) still the synaptic leap between the two will once again be obvious to me when the actual occurs; so for wisdom's sake, I must go on. And so I leave the land of the flying pests behind me.

The next layer of darkness opens before me; I move into a land made to house the lost souls of men...

And here You remind me of the words You spoke hundreds of years before You were born, and again now thousands of years after You died:
"I the Lord, am the first; and with the last I am He."

Strange Pilgrimage...part 1

...taken in that expansive place between sleep and waking, where consciousness is questionable.

Sometimes, I go to see if Our garden is open. Sometimes, it is only open to memory, like a peek into a photo album. Other times, it is more "real" than that. When I went the other night, I went while still awake enough to direct my own thoughts, but asleep enough to accept whatever came even without my direction. Right away, I was surprised. I could tell it was going to be a guided prayer-session in which my imagination would be employed as in a dream, but in which my still-conscious will would also be engaged. I could tell because for the first time, I found myself outside the gate. I was outside for the first time, that is, since the dream when I ran instinctively in through that gate (at that time under angelic guard) in order to escape dog-like creatures that wanted to destroy me. It strikes me as silly when I type it now, but it was all so symbolic, and had its profound connections with Scripture. So the surprise of being unintentionally (on my part at least) outside the gate led me to think I was dreaming; but then a question was put to my will, and I knew myself to still be awake, for my conscious will was required to make answer. As I stood with my back against that gate, I felt You just behind me, and Your warm breath soothed the back of my neck, but Your words did not soothe as You told me to walk out into the darkness. I clung to the gate with that sense of security a child finds in her mother's skirts, but You reassured me. "I'll come after you. Trust me."

So I stepped away from the gate and began to walk. Heavy on me was the sense that I was leaving the place that grounded me, moving more and more away from the feel of it, and into an unknown darkness that was not home to me.

Building Forward Momentum...

While driving on the freeway to meet a friend for dinner Friday night, I was passed by two SUV's. They were obviously close travel companions as they stayed near each other and both bore Virginia plates. The larger front one was black, the smaller rear one white.

They were clean, bright and un-embellished but for one thing: the black SUV bore one window sticker, centered in its back window and visible to all who might follow it. There--in a clean, bright white that connected it to the partner SUV--was a simple message: FORGIVEN.
No picture, not even the clever turn of a phrase to give the idea panache.
Just one word, because when traffic moves, there's no time to read much on a window sticker, and besides...
That one word said all that needed saying.
And although it may sound a little trite, that moment spoke of many others that brighten my countenance.

Another Day in Pleasantville...

5:30 am: Eldest son's computer alarm goes off loudly and wakes everyone but him.

6:00 am: Eldest son leaves for work. After work, he is heading to his future university where he will have a percussion lesson prior to a scholarship audition. Said college is a good 4 hours away.

6:10 am: Same son returns home. "Somewhere around Walmart, the brakes made this really loud pop and don't seem to be working any more." Sudden changes are made in the day's routine as transportation is rearranged so that he can take the family van.

6:30 am: Wake youngest son, who upon rising collapses into the floor in tears. His legs hurt, he says. Dad digs back into that year and a half of PT grad school from his past and checks the little guy out. Determines the three days of relatively high fever have probably left him a little dehydrated. Start pushing fluids and making him walk around to loosen up. Looks like a weepy Frankenstein for a while.

6:45 am: Check the email. Discover one came from the health insurance company with whom we'd sought temporary coverage. Our petition for coverage was denied. (Who could blame them?) So back to square one with trying to get health insurance before dad's starts in May.

7:00 am: Decide the youngest is still not well enough for a day of school, but mom must go to school for end-of-the-term business and dad must go to work as dad's boss arranged for dad to give a presentation to a large group of people. So--youngest will camp out in mom's classroom for the day, coloring and playing video games while classes come and go.

7:10 am: Whole entourage pile into dad's car, which is a perfect size for him, his briefcase and supplies--but becomes rather cramped when two more backpacks, another briefcase, three more people and a portable TV and video game system are added to the cargo.

7:45 am: Eldest son has taken off with mom's school keys. Mom borrows the secretary's master key. Fortunately only needs to do this once during the day.

8:15 am: Mom discovers she left the children's ibuprofen at home. Hoping the youngest one's fever does not return. Goes back to the secretary to see if any stock of generic children's ibuprofen is kept in the cabinets.

9:05 am: Most of mom's classes run smoothly. Kids are amenable to the little guy "visiting" for the day. Dad's presentation goes well, too.

2:00 pm: Mom's school day does not finish as peachy as it started. One kid skips out on class. Begged a bathroom run. Took a long time...finish reading War and Peace type long time. Then tells her that he had something he needed to take care of in the office and this delayed him. But secretary's story was that when the boy came to the office, he said he'd been sent there to see if he could help out at all. Oops. Got caught.

2:20 pm: Mom learns from yesterday's substitute that several kids acted up in computer class. Mom walks into the office. "I need oh--about a ream of discipline referral sheets."

3:35 pm: Dad picks up the crew.

4:10 pm: Driving home, whole family decides to do their once-per-paycheck frivolous spending. The day certainly qualifies for it. They go out for Chinese at a wonderful buffet.

5:05 pm: Too bad Dad didn't realize fever and a queasy-stomach virus were going to hit this soon. He probably would have skipped the sushi.

6:01 pm: Current time. Afraid to predict the evening. Going to check on Dad. Mom signing off.

When Dreams Come True, Part II

So many dreams and the strange way they make Your word glare as if under the swipe of a highlighter:

A "bad" one in which I was in a strange church of bumpy, carpeted catacombs that seemed to swarm outward for light years. As C.S. Lewis succinctly puts the thought: "Something had happened to my senses so that they were now receiving impressions which would normally exceed their capacity." I perceived this place in such a state. Dark, dingy, out of focus and uneven. In this place, I was wrongly used by a spiritual authority during his "sermon" while a sad and silent woman at his side telepathically pitied me. But I surprised them both, for after the service, I marched up to him, and--standing my ground--told him that were it not for my intercession he'd have suffered much for his affront to me, suffered because I belonged to One who could protect me from him, should I but ask it.

That dream is tol here only to clarify another one that grew out of it. It was one of those strange impression dreams...a single image full of spiritual weight that proves hard to define. In it, I saw before me a small, three-legged footstool. It had a warm honey-brown leather cushion on top of three legs of beautiful gleaming wood. It filled me with feelings of good. But it was stuck fast against a large ugly ottoman that was of such a nature that I knew it came from that dark catacombs "church." They most surely did not belong together, soI tried to pull the "good" little footstool away from having to touch the weighty ugly one, but I could not budge it.

A few days later, another short impression dream came to me. One that again had that expanded-senses quality. I stood in what seemed like a park pavilion, only it was enclosed by curtains that hung from high above. I looked up and realized with a spiritual gasp that often accompanies these too-large dreams that the pavilion was a good three storeys tall and the curtains spanned the full distance, hanging from rings on a pole suspended very near the roof overhang. Actually two ranks of curtains were hung: one rank of three storey white semi-sheers hung outside another rank. This second set was but two storeys tall, also on a pole that surrounded the enclosure. The taller ones were set outside the the shorter ones, making them only visible to me, now that I think about it. The curtains, although light, were so long that they moved only slightly in the breeze, and in long rippling waves like a sea. I stood alone on the cement floor of that empty place wondering why I was there. The dream ended.

A few days later, my daily Bible reading brought me across these verses that were prominent in the heart of King David: "Now it came to pass, while David was dwelling in his house, that David said to the prophet Nathan, 'See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant is under tent curtains.'" And later he said again of his plans for building the Lord's temple--and this time said to more than the prophet, but rather said to all of assembled Israel: "Hear me, my brethren and my people: I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made preparations to build it." And I ponder this like it is a distant island and I on a bobbing boat.

More clearly, I understand this theme. Dreams of trash everywhere, and in more than just my own dreams. I told a friend once that God is not a God of waste. That nature reflects His nature in that everything dies one year but is somehow incorporated back into the newness of life that comes the next year.
Nevertheless, many times latelyI dream of being in a filthy environment.

First, I dream of being in a foul and dirty house ruled by the same being that haunted the catacombs dream. Only here, he is an evil clown, and this time his sad moppet woman was pegged as a tool to trick me; but again he fails, and not because I profess divine protection. Rather it seems this time that profession is being tested. But my response is don not by my own words or ingenuity, I hardly know why I am there or what I am doing. My success is attributed to sheer and detailed obedience. I make every move a physical enactment of an impression put to my mind. And in the end, these words ring out over all of us who inhabit that dream, ring from above: "The truth shall set you free!" And their dirty, over-used, rag-doll forms shrink away.

Then again, I dreamed of being in an abandoned house, one with no furnishings, but still filthy with the left-behind trash that finds its way to heap in corners and over threshholds. I consider cleaning it, but as I wander and debate, I find a the only piece of furniture left in the place: a large wooden secretary. I pull up the roll-top to discover another secret roll-top compartment smaller than the first. Lifting that one felt so wonderful and so magical to open, like finding a secret treasure. Inside was a secret spice rack. Twelve bottles of incredibly fine wood, five on each side flanking two central ones going the opposite direction, making a sort of cross. The two central ones striking me as the salt and pepper--the most prominent spices. But the oddity of them being wood. Usually such a rack has the spice jars of glass. Other dreams of wooden objects, wood where wood is rarely used and these wooden things always in dreams with a message of reassurance or of premonition. Only after many days pass do I make the connection--You were a carpenter. Things of supernaturally beautiful wood indicate their having been shaped in Your hands. And as usual, I can't help but wonder how I failed to see that from the start.

But, back to the theme of trash in dreams. Moving beyond my own night imagery, Elijah dreamed he found a secret stairway that led to a hidden sleeping man, and this all happening in a strangely trashy version of our own house. (And it would have to be pretty trashy version to make an impression of excess on him.)

And finally, the one in which I was in Our garden...the place where You, my Lord, and I have spent many a private conversation and enjoyed communion. The same place where You fed me burnished-gold fruit. And it was then and there that I was I suppose endowed with a wisdom direct from Your hand, for Solomon speaks of a Wisdom personified in the feminine gender. And she speaks these words: "My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold."

But one dream in that garden found it dark and stormy. I stood within the gate, somehow knowing myself protected, but nonetheless alone, and I looked out through the bars for You. Dead leaves swirled around my feet. Dead leaves...anything not immediately incorporated back into life in that garden place was an unusual sign. How long since I had that dream: one year, or maybe two? So long to understand the purpose of the common theme. Funny how You can focus it for me in what seems like an instant, like the view through a lens grows suddenly sharp with one small turn, making everything comprehensible.

The turn of that lens began with my making such a racket through prayer and beseeching. I reached out and indeed did not find You anywhere near. I remembered a time when You were always obvious to me within an instant of my seeking. Now I go days without that sense of Your personal presence. Why? Then I feared that my own recollection was faulty. Had our intimacy ever been what I remembered? Or was my imagination playing with my memory? But like a weaned child I sat quietly while doing without You; until finally, You came and said to me: "What if it were true? What if I were no more than a cardboard dummy, and all you suffering were in vain? What would you do?"

First, my heart leaped at that familiar knowing, that sureness of Your nearness once again. But I proceeded immediately to the question You presented. "I suppose I'd turn bitter, learn to hate life, find I had to keep muddling through anyway, finally realizing that nothing had changed except that now I approached it all with a bad attitude. Then again, I could turn bad myself. Submit to wickedness for the sake of embracing the ease that comes with it--but naah...that never seemed to work for me like it does for other people."

"That was a gift," You said pointedly.

"I figured as much," I said in return just as direct.

Then I laughed while I climbed into Your perfect father-lap, and I raised my hand to touch Your face. At that moment, I had one of those jolts to my imagination that often accompany Your visits. I saw my own hand carried a scar.

Long I have gone with nothing but a memory of what You told me about that scar. In that prayer-scape, we stood together, my hand in Yours; and I asked You what this phrase meant: to get behind the affliction of Christ. To suffer for Your sake, and not for the sake of sin, but in order to cooperate with the work You would accomplish in this place. How does one experience it? How does one endure it? And immediately light pierced through Your hand and then mine.

I learned a lot in receiving that vision of scarring. First, that it came only by the sanction of Your Divine Light. Second, that it came through You first. Third, that its magnitude would be minimal compared to the rest of Your suffering, for You went even unto death and into the depths of Hell. But, it would nevertheless mark me as associated with You. This vision I had well over a year ago. Many times in the intervening days I have seem myself a player (obviously) in these settings of conflict between good and evil, but never hve I borne that mark accomplished upon me...until now. So I am encouraged even in the midst of the trials. I am encouraged to know that what was foretold is coming to be, and I am surviving.

And then this morning, I pondered these dreams and the way I have been serving as a litmus test, a sorting tool, the daughter of His people who sits in affliction while He looks for the answer to the question: Who will help? And the trash in the dreams--all that time--they told the story of these days of affliction.
One little proverb in the quiet of my morning Bible reading today.
One little proverb read in the dark while others slept.
One little proverb shattering so much confusion in the visionary world even as it lightly whispers into the peace of the functional world.
And this is it:
"Much food is in the fallow ground of the poor, and for lack of justice there is waste."
We have been fallow ground, lying in wait for the opportunity to be productive. Knowing food waits to grow, looking for the coming of spring.
And as for all the waste: it marks the days in which justice has been measured all around us, in which we have indeed fulfilled our side of the agreement, in which we said we would step behind those afflictions of Yours as You sort and measure what has been, what is, and look to what is to be.
And in every one of these justice-dreams, upon completion of that time spent studying trash comes a time of change, exploration, discovery, and fresh newness.

So Scott, I would tell you this:
You've heard me recently claiming that while I don't have a death-wish, I also don't have a life-wish right now, that life as it has been lately has held little appeal for me, especially the more I become aware of that larger reality. And even though we feel at an impasse in our joint venture into the will of God regarding what even now remains out of focus in God's plans for our futures; nevertheless, once again, my husband, I can say I look forward to the days ahead.