Crossroads

Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe [which is] instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man [that is] an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure [things] new and old. Matthew 13:52

Things old and new.
The old thing--a dream of a dance.  I danced with Christ, and as we danced--formally, something like a waltz--light pierced the scar on his hand, penetrated it.  Then, like a laser, pierced my own as it was clasped in his and the light continued beyond us.  Locked us together.
The new thing--the redundant image of being at a crossroads.  A place of deciding on a course to take.  Changes of direction both obvious and with long-range implications.

Both have come to me repeatedly the last few months--starting almost simultaneously.  Like a tide coming into shore.  Waves of reminders. 

A photo of a statue.  A little sculpture in a friend's house--light in the palm of a hand.  A scene in a movie--a couple sharing a mark in the palm of the hand.  Words spoken to inspire volunteers as they head out to serve.  Unrelated to any but the eye that is willing to watch for such things.  To that eye--secret reminders. A hedging.  A guard rail.  Too personal, too topical, too specific to be anything less than a reaching in from a place beyond.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen [are] temporal; but the things which are not seen [are] eternal.
2 Cor 4:18

And now, the things which are seen make their response.
Even as the moon waxes and wanes--now nearer, now more distant--and the earth can not help but respond, so is the way of such revelation and its path of leading.  It is the way of things, that gravity should have such a power. 
I have no specific old journal entry to add to this one.  It is a post that looks forward with only a background wash from the past.  There are times when looking both toward the past and toward the future give only a rugged landscape for the view. 
There are times when the oasis of things eternal becomes more than an easy platitude to say we embrace.  Times when God asks Satan, "Have you considered my servant, Job?"  And Satan complains that we haven't been tested so of course we serve God; and so God risks His reputation on us and allows temporal things to swell large and things eternal to seem distant.  God allows us to see how much we strive to be satisfied with paltry here and nows, and mostly we can until something concrete reminds that the ache will not end--not really--this side of the grave.  That true and abiding satisfaction, that a sense of fullness and completeness is a thing of eternity, and by faith we ache toward the climax of death.  God allows us to ask ourselves, do we really believe that?

So many changes.  So much inconsistency in life.  Age doesn't assure against it.  Financial security.  Owned property.  A happy family.  Echos on the sonar of what should be out there, in the forever places, but who has actually seen and come back to tell? 

Love brought One back.  Back to tell. 
It is easy to see why she clutched at his feet...