These are the next sections of my journal, taking up in the spring of last year. This is again fairly long. There are three links that open up to older blog posts, as those experiences are directly mentioned.
I've included three quotes from The Spiral Way, by Evelyn Underhill. Her prose is a bit old fashioned, but I enjoyed reading it and gained a lot of perspective from her allegories:
"Suddenly from the tomb where our separated life was laid away, we shall come out into that world, so real and so supernal. Shy and astonished, we shall move with tentative footsteps upon its kindly turf.
"I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the House of the Lord." Green-meshed are the airy vaults of it, and violet blue its cool and shaded floor. The innocent furred acolytes of His Mysteries go without fear between its aisles; the birds and angels sit together in its trees. A Gardener moves between these borders, and blossoms spring between His wounded feet. New life He radiates, and not alone on human spirits. All Creation waits upon His coming; and where He passes by He brings it peace.
Here at last His veritable encounter is made possible to us; here the deepest secrets of His Love are declared to us under the simplest accidents of natural life. "My beloved is mine, and I am His; He feedeth among the lilies." As the veil that hangs before the Tabernacle, so do these dew-drenched branches, so does this heavenly inflorescence, shroud the gateway to the Garden of His joy...
This at last it knows, and knowing, does not seek to understand: for now it is "one thing with Him," buried with Him, risen with Him- at last its life is hidden with Christ in God."
-First Triumphant Mystery: The Resurrection, from The Spiral Way: Being Meditations Upon the Fifteen Mysteries of the Soul's Ascent, (second edition, 1922)
*
Written May 6, 2013-
Last night, I was working through everything in a new way. I went back to the very beginning with Him. We were on the couch together, whispering.
I said, “In the beginning, You were with God, the only begotten Son, the manifest image of the Father, in His intimate presence.”
(I keep thinking how there is such a connection between Jesus being in the arms of the Father and how I am in the arms of Jesus, like a smaller mirror image of that original intimacy, and how all are held within God, and God within God.)
“And You were the wisdom of God,” I continued.
Yes, He agreed, reminding me of the passages.
“And You were the glory of God, the outlying radiance,” I continued, musingly. I pondered this mystery for a while.
Yes, He agreed softly.
“And You were the Word- the spoken Word of God,” I said, in wonder, “the full expression of Himself.”
Yes, He said, full of love.
This was very rich, and I pondered it for a while and then I thought about myself.
“So…” I said softly. “First I was the Father’s and then He gave me to You…” But I couldn’t continue for a moment, because my saying this so moved and delighted Him.
“So then,” I said, taking up where we had left off, “You came down and suffered Yourself to become fully human. And then Your name was Jesus.”
That was always My name, He said, quietly.
It was as if that was the name that rested always in His heart, waiting for Him to come to His purpose, the secret plan of God and His name, waiting to be spoken aloud.
So that, when the angel Gabriel told Mary that was to be His name, he said that because it already was, and I remembered what it meant: it means savior- God saves.
And then it seemed as though I could in fact feel and see the scars across His back. They were so deep, it was excruciating to be aware of them. I wanted to bandage Him, to wrap Him up in layers of soft, wet gauze and then bind the wounds up tightly in clean white cloth.
“And then You came back,” I whispered to Jesus, thinking of the verse, Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and lift them up, ancient doors, that the King of glory might come in. (ps. 24:9)
My thoughts wandered to myself, thinking of all the unspeakable things that would happen to me as a child- the helplessness and degradation and fear and shame. As I was remembering this, I felt His incredible pain and sorrow that was like a physical pain within Him and He said, so fiercely, with such grief, I was with you. His pain for me was so great, we felt it together, as if we were breathing through the pain together and I whispered to Him, “You were with me, I was never alone. You were always with me and that’s all over now and I never have to go through it again.”
And the pain passed through and away.
“And now I am here,” I continued, with surprise to realize it. “And we have this tender, sweet relationship through the veil of my life here.”
And I am always with you, He assured me, again.
Then my thoughts drifted outward, toward the rest of humanity and the awful pain and suffering that is so prevalent and in thinking of this, I felt His pain- it was some awful, crippling, emotional pain at this state of affairs which is temporary because everything has not come to the complete fulfillment of its purpose- the entire premise has changed, but all the circumstances have not been visibly or effectively aligned with the premise.
And the pain of this waiting time I could feel was going through Him. It wasn’t that He had any doubts, it was that He was feeling the middle. Or, as Richard Rohr put it once:
"After the cross, we know that God is not watching human pain, nor apparently always stopping human pain, as much as God is found hanging with us alongside all human pain. Jesus forever tell us that God is found wherever the pain is, which leaves God on both sides of every war, in sympathy with both the pain of the perpetrator and the pain of the victim, with the excluded, the tortured, the abandoned, and the oppressed since the beginning of time. I wonder if we even like that. There are no games of moral superiority left. Yet this is exactly the kind of Lover and the universal Love that humanity needs."
(Adapted from The Great Themes of Scripture, originally posted on April 6, 2012)
I don’t know how He can endure this, if He feels it continually. But that continues to be a mystery. All I know is, from time to time, I am aware that He is feeling this. And last night, immediately, I put my arms around Him and whispered into His ear what Julian of Norwich was told, by Him- all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well and all shall be well.
And He reminded me again, that I was writing something down for others and I said again, “How? Help me. Help me do it.”
We went out into the orchard- there is an orchard to the side of the inner room. It is stone walled and mossy with a stone walk way through the center of it. I’m discovering these things bit by bit as I see more clearly.
I went to the wall to look over. We lay down under the tree and watched the branches moving against the sky.
*
"Bit by bit, yet very gently, we are led into all the wonders of that new existence. So great is the reverence of our Lover for the littleness and ignorance of the soul, so matchless the humility of God, that He chooses to await the slow discovery of that spirit whom he has made only for Himself. His companionship waits ever at the margin of the mind. But that mind must turn to Him if it would know all the splendors of communion: going up with the sharp dart of longing love from the created to the uncreated sphere. This act, the act of prayer made perfect, has now become for it the highest of all arts, the Science of all Sciences, the Romance in which all longings are fulfilled. So we need not be astonished that the passion for the Real often seizes upon the soul, rapturously and suddenly: abruptly abducts the citizen into the Heavenly Country, catching him from the earth and inundates him with the Uncreated Light. In swift ascents of joy his love will go out toward that Love of God which rushes in to meet it: that the Loved and Lover may at last be made "one thing."
-Second Triumphant Mystery: The Ascension
*
Written May 10, 2013-
Then we went inside and I realized that there was another room- beside the interior room, behind the front room.
There was a fountain there that was sunk into the stone and water flowed up from under the stone, and the water poured over the lip of the fountain and down stone steps and into the back garden, which was very dense with deep green shrubs and moss and the water ran away in a stream that disappeared under the dense, shiny foliage; they look like rhododendron bushes.
I’ve been testing distance and presence and awareness, so last night, I closed the door when He was in the inner room and made myself stay in the horrible discomfort of feeling that I had offended Him and knowing that I had not- then I opened the door and made space for Him and He swept me up into His loving arms and He was full of love and good humor.
So that was wonderfully reassuring and then I declared that He was the cosmic Christ- the All in All, as it were- the substance within which I and everything move, and that was so. I experienced it as so.
I've included three quotes from The Spiral Way, by Evelyn Underhill. Her prose is a bit old fashioned, but I enjoyed reading it and gained a lot of perspective from her allegories:
"Suddenly from the tomb where our separated life was laid away, we shall come out into that world, so real and so supernal. Shy and astonished, we shall move with tentative footsteps upon its kindly turf.
"I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the House of the Lord." Green-meshed are the airy vaults of it, and violet blue its cool and shaded floor. The innocent furred acolytes of His Mysteries go without fear between its aisles; the birds and angels sit together in its trees. A Gardener moves between these borders, and blossoms spring between His wounded feet. New life He radiates, and not alone on human spirits. All Creation waits upon His coming; and where He passes by He brings it peace.
Here at last His veritable encounter is made possible to us; here the deepest secrets of His Love are declared to us under the simplest accidents of natural life. "My beloved is mine, and I am His; He feedeth among the lilies." As the veil that hangs before the Tabernacle, so do these dew-drenched branches, so does this heavenly inflorescence, shroud the gateway to the Garden of His joy...
This at last it knows, and knowing, does not seek to understand: for now it is "one thing with Him," buried with Him, risen with Him- at last its life is hidden with Christ in God."
-First Triumphant Mystery: The Resurrection, from The Spiral Way: Being Meditations Upon the Fifteen Mysteries of the Soul's Ascent, (second edition, 1922)
*
Written May 6, 2013-
Last night, I was working through everything in a new way. I went back to the very beginning with Him. We were on the couch together, whispering.
I said, “In the beginning, You were with God, the only begotten Son, the manifest image of the Father, in His intimate presence.”
(I keep thinking how there is such a connection between Jesus being in the arms of the Father and how I am in the arms of Jesus, like a smaller mirror image of that original intimacy, and how all are held within God, and God within God.)
“And You were the wisdom of God,” I continued.
Yes, He agreed, reminding me of the passages.
“And You were the glory of God, the outlying radiance,” I continued, musingly. I pondered this mystery for a while.
Yes, He agreed softly.
“And You were the Word- the spoken Word of God,” I said, in wonder, “the full expression of Himself.”
Yes, He said, full of love.
This was very rich, and I pondered it for a while and then I thought about myself.
“So…” I said softly. “First I was the Father’s and then He gave me to You…” But I couldn’t continue for a moment, because my saying this so moved and delighted Him.
“So then,” I said, taking up where we had left off, “You came down and suffered Yourself to become fully human. And then Your name was Jesus.”
That was always My name, He said, quietly.
It was as if that was the name that rested always in His heart, waiting for Him to come to His purpose, the secret plan of God and His name, waiting to be spoken aloud.
So that, when the angel Gabriel told Mary that was to be His name, he said that because it already was, and I remembered what it meant: it means savior- God saves.
And then it seemed as though I could in fact feel and see the scars across His back. They were so deep, it was excruciating to be aware of them. I wanted to bandage Him, to wrap Him up in layers of soft, wet gauze and then bind the wounds up tightly in clean white cloth.
“And then You came back,” I whispered to Jesus, thinking of the verse, Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and lift them up, ancient doors, that the King of glory might come in. (ps. 24:9)
My thoughts wandered to myself, thinking of all the unspeakable things that would happen to me as a child- the helplessness and degradation and fear and shame. As I was remembering this, I felt His incredible pain and sorrow that was like a physical pain within Him and He said, so fiercely, with such grief, I was with you. His pain for me was so great, we felt it together, as if we were breathing through the pain together and I whispered to Him, “You were with me, I was never alone. You were always with me and that’s all over now and I never have to go through it again.”
And the pain passed through and away.
“And now I am here,” I continued, with surprise to realize it. “And we have this tender, sweet relationship through the veil of my life here.”
And I am always with you, He assured me, again.
Then my thoughts drifted outward, toward the rest of humanity and the awful pain and suffering that is so prevalent and in thinking of this, I felt His pain- it was some awful, crippling, emotional pain at this state of affairs which is temporary because everything has not come to the complete fulfillment of its purpose- the entire premise has changed, but all the circumstances have not been visibly or effectively aligned with the premise.
And the pain of this waiting time I could feel was going through Him. It wasn’t that He had any doubts, it was that He was feeling the middle. Or, as Richard Rohr put it once:
"After the cross, we know that God is not watching human pain, nor apparently always stopping human pain, as much as God is found hanging with us alongside all human pain. Jesus forever tell us that God is found wherever the pain is, which leaves God on both sides of every war, in sympathy with both the pain of the perpetrator and the pain of the victim, with the excluded, the tortured, the abandoned, and the oppressed since the beginning of time. I wonder if we even like that. There are no games of moral superiority left. Yet this is exactly the kind of Lover and the universal Love that humanity needs."
(Adapted from The Great Themes of Scripture, originally posted on April 6, 2012)
I don’t know how He can endure this, if He feels it continually. But that continues to be a mystery. All I know is, from time to time, I am aware that He is feeling this. And last night, immediately, I put my arms around Him and whispered into His ear what Julian of Norwich was told, by Him- all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well and all shall be well.
And He reminded me again, that I was writing something down for others and I said again, “How? Help me. Help me do it.”
We went out into the orchard- there is an orchard to the side of the inner room. It is stone walled and mossy with a stone walk way through the center of it. I’m discovering these things bit by bit as I see more clearly.
I went to the wall to look over. We lay down under the tree and watched the branches moving against the sky.
*
"Bit by bit, yet very gently, we are led into all the wonders of that new existence. So great is the reverence of our Lover for the littleness and ignorance of the soul, so matchless the humility of God, that He chooses to await the slow discovery of that spirit whom he has made only for Himself. His companionship waits ever at the margin of the mind. But that mind must turn to Him if it would know all the splendors of communion: going up with the sharp dart of longing love from the created to the uncreated sphere. This act, the act of prayer made perfect, has now become for it the highest of all arts, the Science of all Sciences, the Romance in which all longings are fulfilled. So we need not be astonished that the passion for the Real often seizes upon the soul, rapturously and suddenly: abruptly abducts the citizen into the Heavenly Country, catching him from the earth and inundates him with the Uncreated Light. In swift ascents of joy his love will go out toward that Love of God which rushes in to meet it: that the Loved and Lover may at last be made "one thing."
-Second Triumphant Mystery: The Ascension
*
Written May 10, 2013-
Then we went inside and I realized that there was another room- beside the interior room, behind the front room.
There was a fountain there that was sunk into the stone and water flowed up from under the stone, and the water poured over the lip of the fountain and down stone steps and into the back garden, which was very dense with deep green shrubs and moss and the water ran away in a stream that disappeared under the dense, shiny foliage; they look like rhododendron bushes.
I’ve been testing distance and presence and awareness, so last night, I closed the door when He was in the inner room and made myself stay in the horrible discomfort of feeling that I had offended Him and knowing that I had not- then I opened the door and made space for Him and He swept me up into His loving arms and He was full of love and good humor.
So that was wonderfully reassuring and then I declared that He was the cosmic Christ- the All in All, as it were- the substance within which I and everything move, and that was so. I experienced it as so.
I was alone in the room, but not alone, because the room was Him. I lay down on the clean stones in the corner of the inner room and spread my arms out and said this is You. I felt a little foolish, but- it is a safe place, a place of love, joy, simple and transparent being and communion and it is ours. I rested there.
I walked around the room, alone, but not alone, because He is everything and I let that be and the room began to break apart into light- bright, bright light and fell into space- the open space of His being everything and then the room formed again, because it does exist- form does exist. Form is an expression of Him.
This time He said, let’s go swimming and I said where? And He said there was a lake- or He showed me the lake, so I said where?
I was quiet and open and I realized it was deeper into the woods where the stream overflowed from the fountain. We stepped down through the water that was pouring from the fountain and into the small pond that is formed from the outflow, and we ducked under the foliage and followed the little stream that runs quietly out from the pond, and there was a lake, a long narrow deep lake sunk into saturated green moss and the waters were deep bottle green and some cobalt blue. He slipped into the waters and so I followed Him only into the shallows.
I stayed by the edge, ankle deep, my feet sunk into the moss. Then I leaned forward and sunk into the water and dove under and I could breathe under there. The water was crystal clear and cool and the bottom was mossy and the very bottom was filled with deep green weeds that waved over stones. We swam down further and further down and came out by a mossy flat bank underneath a towering moss oak and the branches and the ferns that grew around it enclosed the bank in green.
I won’t be able to describe this, because there is so much, but I want to try.
As I was worshiping Him with all of myself, and caught up in the outpouring of His love, I saw that Jesus was full of fire, and I was on fire and we were encased in two flames of fire that was at the heart of it one white burning flame. His eyes were full of fire; I could see His face through the flame.
And somehow, we were hanging somewhere and it was lit from within and without, like silk over the light, but He was the light within and His body was incandescent and He had wings of fire and He hung in the light and we were turning white gold with the flames.
It was so overwhelming that I had to reach my hand to the scars in His hands to reassure myself and I knew He was the author of Life, the only begotten Son, Life itself, the Son of the Living God, the author of my life and that our lives were joined together, joined in such a way that we could not be taken apart and I kept thinking about this- that His life flowed through me like fire or like the blood in my veins. Even I was incandescent, full of fire and light. We were silhouetted against the light, made of light, like a golden light against a pale light and surrounded by light.
Jesus asked, who are you to Me?
And I said “I’m Your beloved, Your cracked clay pot of flesh and blood and spirit and life…"
And He said you’re the apple of my eye, under the shadow of my wings, hidden in the secret places of the tabernacle.
I saw Him close His eyes and hide His face behind His crossed arms and enclose me in His wings of fire and wrappings of incandescent silk like a silken cocoon of light moving in the wind. I was hidden at the heart of Jesus, in the heart of Him, under all those layers of light, and I could see His heart beating red and orange as fire through the incandescence of His light. I called Him Jesus, because that is the name that was always hidden in His heart.
Then we were again on the mossy bank, only I could hardly breathe, let alone
think and I was trembling all through me and still caught up in that outpouring of love that was so much I can't describe it.
And Jesus said, what did I teach you?
I managed to say, “I’m Yours, Your dove in the clefts of the rock.”
What did I say to you? He asked, and I remembered when He came beside me, in the Spirit two years ago and how He coaxed me to speak it to Him.
I said, “You said, go on, go on, go on…” and I was remembering how, at that time, He had said that, encouraging me to come to the heart of the matter.
And Jesus said and what I did I teach you, what did I say to you?
And I said, “You said to me, your Maker is your husband, is your husband, your Maker is your husband.”
And who was I, sitting beside you, speaking to you, teaching you this? He insisted.
Of course I remembered it vividly, how much I knew who He was, how well I knew Him, after months of Him being around me. I remembered being stunned by it.
“It was You, Jesus. You’re Jesus, the Son of the Living God. You said that to me,” I said.
And what else did I teach you? Jesus asked.
And I remembered Him coming to me, to make clear what had happened the night before, when I had been caught up in worship of Him, realizing that I was like a spring of living waters, and those waters were Himself also- His Spirit, up welling in me, so I was His own spring, His own garden and that this meant that He was my beloved.
“You said… you said… I was Your garden enclosed, Your spring shut up…" I managed to say.
And Jesus said again, what is My name? Who am I?
And I said, “You’re Jesus, the Son of God, the Holy One of God, You’re the Holy One of God, the Savior, the Anointed One.”
Again He asked, what did I teach you?
I had such a hard time thinking- I knew there was another time He had taught me this lesson- the lesson that He had taught me again and again, in layers over time- and then I remembered- I remembered the first thing He taught me; how it had been as though He were bending over my chair and pointing to the words on the screen and saying the words so that I heard them in my heart.
“You said that it was mine…”
And Jesus said, what did I teach you?
I managed to say, “I’m Yours, Your dove in the clefts of the rock.”
What did I say to you? He asked, and I remembered when He came beside me, in the Spirit two years ago and how He coaxed me to speak it to Him.
I said, “You said, go on, go on, go on…” and I was remembering how, at that time, He had said that, encouraging me to come to the heart of the matter.
And Jesus said and what I did I teach you, what did I say to you?
And I said, “You said to me, your Maker is your husband, is your husband, your Maker is your husband.”
And who was I, sitting beside you, speaking to you, teaching you this? He insisted.
Of course I remembered it vividly, how much I knew who He was, how well I knew Him, after months of Him being around me. I remembered being stunned by it.
“It was You, Jesus. You’re Jesus, the Son of the Living God. You said that to me,” I said.
And what else did I teach you? Jesus asked.
And I remembered Him coming to me, to make clear what had happened the night before, when I had been caught up in worship of Him, realizing that I was like a spring of living waters, and those waters were Himself also- His Spirit, up welling in me, so I was His own spring, His own garden and that this meant that He was my beloved.
“You said… you said… I was Your garden enclosed, Your spring shut up…" I managed to say.
And Jesus said again, what is My name? Who am I?
And I said, “You’re Jesus, the Son of God, the Holy One of God, You’re the Holy One of God, the Savior, the Anointed One.”
Again He asked, what did I teach you?
I had such a hard time thinking- I knew there was another time He had taught me this lesson- the lesson that He had taught me again and again, in layers over time- and then I remembered- I remembered the first thing He taught me; how it had been as though He were bending over my chair and pointing to the words on the screen and saying the words so that I heard them in my heart.
“You said that it was mine…”
What was yours? Jesus insisted, with such loving authority.
“That I was Your little one, Your beloved, Your own.”
And who am I? He asked, once again.
“You’re Jesus, the Savior, the Holy One of God, the only begotten Son of the Living God, You’re God and the Son of God and the Life and my Eternal, my Source, the living waters and my End.”
So…
I just don’t have any words, really. As I’m typing this, there’s a warm fire burning all through me; I can physically feel it. Over and over again He taught me and now He is bringing that teaching out into a deeper level.
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God."
-I Corinthians 2:10-12
*
" ...each upward rush towards communion with His Perfect Beauty involves a return to the restless and imperfect world of Becoming, a sharing in the creative industries of His Immanent Love.
“That I was Your little one, Your beloved, Your own.”
And who am I? He asked, once again.
“You’re Jesus, the Savior, the Holy One of God, the only begotten Son of the Living God, You’re God and the Son of God and the Life and my Eternal, my Source, the living waters and my End.”
So…
I just don’t have any words, really. As I’m typing this, there’s a warm fire burning all through me; I can physically feel it. Over and over again He taught me and now He is bringing that teaching out into a deeper level.
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God."
-I Corinthians 2:10-12
*
" ...each upward rush towards communion with His Perfect Beauty involves a return to the restless and imperfect world of Becoming, a sharing in the creative industries of His Immanent Love.
There is here then no selfish abstraction from the actual, no deliberate neglect of the lovely life of service which is Christ's; but one-half of the completed self-expression of man in his wholeness, that citizen of time and of Eternity, "swinging between the Unseen and the Seen."
But these difficult responses to Finite and to Infinite shall and must depend on a constant renewal and refreshing: on a contact with the Transcendent "never to be lost or broken," on a conscious self-mergence with the soul "as a fish in the sea, as a bird in the air," in the Infinite Being of God. They shall depend on the soul's continual nurture by His feeding and inflowing Grace..."
-Third Triumphant Mystery: The Coming of the Holy Spirit
Written May 12, 2013-
I have to write down some of the things that happened since.
The next night, I was there and it was so much, too much, even to be around Him. Everything was much more clear than ever before. I wanted to see Jesus, so I stood in front of Him and looked and looked and His face was clear and I recognized Him.
When I recognized Jesus, I fell to His feet. This happened more than once. He led me outside and He led me down past the orchard and there is a meadow down there.
We were walking through the meadow and everything was drenched with light, brilliant light and I could see Jesus so clearly- His profile. He has a dark beard, that is not long or bushy and dark toned skin and beautifully shaped eyes the color of amber brown and full of light, and a nose with a high, arched bridge. He has a tender mouth.
Every time I saw Him and knew He was Jesus, I fell to His feet. It was overwhelming. I was holding on to Him and remembering how I’d seen Him encased in that silken light glowing and how He had been entirely luminous as though made of light, hanging in the light with wings of fire and how His light was Life and how His life was all through me.
Thinking about this caused my spirit to go up in fire and my head to swim and the light was so bright in the meadow that I almost couldn’t see anything at all and I heard a voice echo around me and in me and it said, this is My Son, in Whom I am well pleased. I fell down and put my hands over my face, terrified and completely overwhelmed and wondering how this could be possible and where it would end and why all this was happening to me and how was it happening?
I kept falling down so often that we hardly made any progress at all, but Jesus did not seem to be in any hurry and just kept pace with me. Sometimes He would smile and His teeth would be so white against His dark beard and skin, and the skin at His eyes would crinkle up so delightfully. Sometimes His expression was just lost in quiet tenderness. That is His usual expression.
We reached a slow moving stream through the meadow and the water was bottle dark and shadowed and warm and slow. He went into the stream and it made me think of Him being baptized, because His robe got soaked to the knee. I went in with Him to the other side and there was a like a road or a path there.
We went up the path into the woods- it was a strip of woods that ran up the hill into wooded hills and there was a house there, a mossy spring house, but then I was too tired to stay awake.
The next night He wanted me to go down into the meadow, so I followed Him there and as we were going, I was practicing walking deliberately- one step, the other step, watching the ground move, feeling my weight sway and He did the same thing and I looked up at Him swiftly, to see if He was making fun of me, but of course He never would, He was just being playful.
So then we went in slow deliberate steps together down across the lawn and sometimes, when I’m with Him, the joy comes over me so deeply and so unexpectedly that I’m simply laughing and laughing and so is He and I don’t even know what is funny.
We went through the strip of woods and beyond it was another meadow, only this was a pasture running up into the hills and bordered by the woods and the cliff on the lower side and at the farther side was another strip of woods and I looked at Him, like, am I seeing this right?
That confused me for a while and then I said to myself, just try accepting your deepest instincts- just be quiet and still. It was a stone wall bordered by pine woods, running down to the cliff and when we came out the other side of this thin border, I could see the land all falling down and away to the distant coast.
The land was all like heather- bare, rolling hill sweeps and the coastline glittered and moved below and there was an island off the coast and the coast line swept up further and away to my right, beyond what I could see and to the right also the land went up further into woods.
He took me to a lone pine tree, but I was confused and then we were on the coast line and it was of small rocks and we were walking along the coast line and a house appeared, of rough rocks with wooden beams and it looked deserted.
But someone came out of the door opening and it was a dark skinned indigenous man with a feather headdress and not much else and I could see his gentle, weathered, loving eyes. He was skinny and worn down looking and as I looked at him, I heard, Papa New Guinea, and I thought, well, that makes sense.
This fellow welcomed us on the beach before a bonfire and he roasted fish and he handed me fish on a stick. Jesus was kneeling or sitting on my other side. When I looked at Him, His eyes were filled with love and compassion and recognition. We all ate the fish. It was sweet and afterward the man handed me a napkin.
I was confused by this- a linen napkin!- but I thanked him and wiped my fingers- they did seem to be sticky. Then the man lifted his arms and the fire flared up and I could feel the heat of it on my face.
Then it was time to go and I stood and really looked at the man and his eyes were so soft and loving and gentle, like a father. I loved him immediately. He shook my hand and then he kissed me on each cheek.
I asked him, is that how you really look? Because he looked so old and I wondered why he would choose to look so old- I wondered if that was how he saw himself or if that was just now.
In response, he took off his feathered headdress and his head was close shaven and prickly and he looked at me out of his shy, childlike dark eyes and ran his hand over his stubbly head. It was as if he was showing me a secret. I didn’t know what it meant, but I received this from him- I saw and accepted with love his way of being. We all stood there, in each other’s presence with mutual and gentle love and acceptance and recognition. I was glad to have met him.
And then we went home and I said to Jesus, "Is he alone down there?"
And Jesus said, he has friends.
This response delighted me. I was glad he had friends down there. And I realized that people might think I was lonely- my house was alone in the woods, at the edge of the cliff and I was the farthest thing from lonely.
We went home, and I was still just trying to assimilate everything. So we went swimming in the deep lake and came out at the source where water falls over great, mossy slabs of rock and we followed it up the steep bank- there were stone steps set into the hillside, sometimes deep into the hillside and into a cave at the top of the mountain where there was the source of the stream in a pool and up the stairs to the stop of the mountain itself and we could look around and see the falling hillsides and the shore at the far edge of sight and woods in the other direction and I fell asleep there.
