A dream

This is a dream my sister shared with me a long time ago. I have been thinking about it lately. I am going to narrate the dream as if it were a scene from a movie to help me tell it better.

SCENE:
The camera pans through a crowded city of people numbly going about their business. In the midst of this city, there is a room. It is transparent, made, perhaps, of glass. From time to time, individuals compelled by something in the room, wander to it and momentarily stop doing what they are occupied with to distantly gaze at the scene inside. A monotone, emotionless voice can be heard saying, “Yes, there is the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world,” as it comes from an observer pressed against the glass. After the hollow acknowledgement, the individual returns to the activity of the city.

The camera now focuses on the space left by the observer. It closes in on a very old man within. As he hovers over a sacrifice on a massive stone altar, his tears fall on the body lying there. The ancient man’s sobs are anguished and mournful as he cries out to the crowds beyond his glass box……

“This is my child....... who will love my Son. Who will love my Jesus, slain from the foundation of the world?

Please....... love my Lamb.”

His grief is overwhelming……..the separation profound.


Today, I am thinking about how the veil was torn from top to bottom when Jesus breathed his last breath as the ultimate sacrifice. I was thinking about how the Holy of Holies which lies behind that curtain is passionately desired by His Father for us all. The experience is Jesus himself, overwhelming, breathtaking, intimate and raw………not his blessings or riches or perfect marriages, good kids, or successful ministry or personal fulfillment, but Himself alone.
But somehow, the veil has been replaced by another barrier, a barrier of knowledge, doctrinal correctness, attainment of godly things, worship of church, trying to make life work…..and the box gets bigger.



May I break the glass created by myself and others to keep God in a safe, reasonable place in order to keep my eye on Him as I go about my business. This is risky; I may be wounded in the process. Will I ever break through and fully comprehend the love of the Father for His child, the depths of what it really cost Him.

Somehow I intuit that the secret to a life of glorifying the Father lies in the simple act of cherishing, meditating on His offering and testimony about His Son. To enter into the scene only for the sake of being in His presence, to weep with Him……the Ancient One, and tell Him I love Him, I love His Son, His Baby, who was slain from the foundation of the world.


1 John 5:1:
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.

Slice of life

I am sitting here and surfing blogs and Bronwyn is cruising around the flood positioned funiture on her razor scooter and Gregg says,"Hey,did ya know Joe is directing the Christmas show?" "Maybe I'll audition".. .....I'll play a workaholic."

"No," says Bronwyn, " You should be the psycho Chritmas elf," as she scooters by.

A Grand Conversion

I finished reading my husband’s blog. I spotted a spelling error that struck me. I believe he intended to spell the word ‘conversation’ not conversion, when he said he had a “grand conversion with Bronwyn.” I think that the right word is there and should not be corrected.

It is in these things that I find Jesus and His sparrow moments. I think the beauty of Jesus was serendipitously articulated in that spelling error. Gregg really was undergoing a “Grand Conversion” with his six year old. Any time one can be pulled away from the lies of linearity, our own ability to right all things, the have- to’s and the urgent things, one is experiencing the breaking in of the Kingdom and is being converted towards Jesus. Our conversions are often catalyzed by the most unlikely vessels.

The authenticity of Jesus often remains imperceptible and a rare experience for me. Mainly because my attention is on the things, ideas or formulas that will never form Christ in me. They may make me look good to my Christian culture or convince me that I have it all together (even though everyone can see my cheese is falling off my cracker). They can fill me with spiritual pride and delusion of a better life, but never will help me fall in love with people or be caught up in the Trinitarian romance. They will never allow me to experience that God more often converts me through submission to things that require an exercise of my own intimacy with Him, myself and others. Life is so full of Burning-Bush-moments…...


I wrote this poem in my "private thoughts "book a year ago….

Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries

Elizabeth Barret Browning

Today

Today is a difficult day. I am trying to keep all the plates spinning but most seem to never even get off to a wobble and the others are crashing in pieces to the floor.

Today is one of those days where I must accept that, sometimes, life just does not work.

I don’t want a solution I don’t want a miracle…….I would miss the lesson if I asked for it all to be fixed……

I just want Jesus.

As I sit in a puddle of my own tears, ignorance, rebellion, like a child after a tantrum; half dressed one shoe on, hair matted and a dozen plates strewn across the room in various broken pieces, I will reach out to the only One that makes sense to me.