As I lay sleeping last night, I had a dream, and I awoke (in my dream) in a pleasant grassy field filled with wild flowers and warm summer breezes wafting pleasantly through the long meadow grass as if invisible cherubs were tumbling after each other in heavenly roughhouse. Sitting on a rock on a pinnacle overlooking a vast valley below, was God.
I slowly approached Him like a medieval penitent entering church. He greeted me like an old friend and motioned for me to sit beside Him.
I hate to say it, but yes, He did have a gray beard, though well trimmed…He was a big, rawboned fellow, dressed simply; He didn't have a pompadour, His hair was like white wool, actually, and to be honest with you I couldn't tell the color of his eyes because I …well whatever it took I didn't have enough of it to look Him in the eye.
He made me feel all at once like I was never so poor, or come to think of it…never so rich.
I did notice though, that he wasn't Anglo-Saxon, and this came as a surprise to me…and by his accent I knew He wasn't American either, another surprise. He seemed to be kind of catholic, er… I mean universal, I couldn't really tell where He hailed from.
I knew in my heart that he had me pegged. He knew everything I had ever done. He penetrated me like a flaming, double-edged sword cutting warm butter…and a couple of times I blanched and shuddered as my evil ways seemed to bubble up before me like effluent from a failed septic system. My sins were so clear and obvious; it was as if they were being "shouted from the rooftops"…so to speak.
He didn't seem to care, though. All He cared about was that I was there now by His side and speaking to Him.
"Son, you have some questions for me?" He asked…His voice was like controlled thunder.
"Yes sir," I said, not really knowing the proper salutation for The Creator Himself. u2018Sir' seemed ineffectual, somewhat disrespectful…even blasphemous. He pretended not to notice.
"Call me papa," He said.
So there I was…sitting in a beautiful summer meadow overlooking what must have been the whole world with "I Am Who Am" and He wants me to call Him "papa."
I wept.
His big thumbs wiped away my tears and as I heaved and sniffled, I feebly went ahead with my questions. I knew I had only a few moments before the alarm clock would ring like some petty demons shrieking work whistle, and I'd be back in time's confusing place again.
"Papa," I said, "As You know, we just had an election in America,"
"Yes," He was familiar with that He said, but was trying to connect a little girl in Africa, with some food and warmth, and she had been His priority that night…
I was surprised to find out where His priority was as I thought it would surely be the American election.
I asked Him if He knew who won, and, seemingly oblivious to my question, He said, "I did connect the little girl and a wonderful woman who found her, cold and hungry in the bushes…certainly they both won that night, the little girl who ate and received warmth and the wonderful woman who gave it to her…Frankly, I won as well," He said.
"No…no, do you know who won the American election?" I asked, perhaps a little bit too impatiently, considering I could easily be smote.
"Same night…" He said, "I observed a young man who was barely standing, suffering from acute hunger in an absolutely barren and famine ridden part of a once abundant region of earth. (I thought I heard Him sigh.) It had been devastated by war and now there was nothing…this hungry man gave his few crumbs of a meal to a dying stranger who had fallen into the street, the stranger nearly dead from malnutrition. These things are rare," He continued, "but when they happen…the universe shifts." He smiled a most wonderful smile.
I called out "papa" again, and was a little embarrassed at the way it sounded coming from my throat. I sounded a bit hysterical, and hoped he didn't notice.
He went on. "You see that young mother down there with a single tear in her eye…she would be drenched in tears if she had any more left." He said.
"My son, the world is rich with magnificent souls…contained in such seemingly modest vessels." He went on, His eyes scanning, searching out the ground beneath him.
"And there…" He said, pointing," that great man will be with me tonight and I will finally drink wine with him around a quiet fire…and give peace…and youth back to his great soul."
I looked where He was pointing and only saw a stricken dying old man, seemingly alone in a crummy strip mall nursing home.
"I'm sorry my son…what were you asking me?"
Just then the alarm ripped through the peace of my dream like an F-15 on a strafing run and I stiffly rose from the bed and flipped on the TV for the election results. The commentator's faces smiling through the glowing screen seemed to me like pitchmen from Chaos, the numbers and issues spilling from their lips like morsels of un-masticated food from glutton's mouths.
A little of God must have rubbed off on me I thought, as I switched off the TV, and reflected about different things as I dressed; like I wondered if I could find that crummy nursing home and maybe say goodbye to that dying old man.
November 11, 2004
