Ken Gire in his book The Weathering Grace of God, says "I have had moments when it seemed I was at the railing that separates heaven and earth, and there was offered as sacrament...whatever your moments have been, you sensed that something sacred was being offered you."
This next entry is that sort of thing. Surely, the most poignant vision of sacrament I've ever know personally.
September 20
Last night, I dreamed I was slicing a loaf of bread. It had been sliced once before, but I was cutting another slice. And as my hand holding the knife reached the bottom of the loaf, an electric-like charge ran through my pinkie finger and up my arm. I had thoughts of communion bread swell in me as this all happened. What is this about, God?!? It "felt" a lot like the anointing vision I had about my husband. And my mind heard Your words, "This is my body, broken for you." If this is to be made real somehow, prepare me and those around me for it, Lord. Is this part of that "going into the gap" idea?
My Bible reading today also hits brokenness in prophetic living. Ezekiel's wife dies suddenly, and God directs Ezekiel to process the event as a prophet rather than just as a man. What an incredible assignment! How profoundly connected he must have been to God, with all people--even his wife--cast as but a shadow of a larger existence for him, a larger one that he was called to proclaim. Then in chapter 24 of his book, it says "And you, son of man, will it not be in the day when I take from them their stronghold, their joy, their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that on which they set their minds, their sons and their daughters: on that day one who escapes will come to you to let you hear it with your ears; on that day your mouth will be opened to him who has escaped; you shall speak and no longer be mute. Thus you will be a sign to them, and they shall know that I am the Lord."
Who or what is the stronghold You'll take away, O God? The joy? The glory? The desire of their eyes and the one they think about? Even as Ezekiel surely wanted to feel these things privately for his wife, suddenly lost to him, he instead would open his mouth, lose his muteness and become a sign to those who fell into a similar experience in their own way. Who is Ezekiel's wife now, God? Or what?
I think of something that happened in my homeroom this morning. [I taught at a Christian school and had a junior high homeroom when this entry was written.] The little gal who always volunteered to pray at the start of the day was pulled out of the school last Friday. So when I asked for a prayer volunteer this time, it was to an open field. And a little boy who had never before volunteered raised his hand and prayed. The memory haunts me again as I see a real-world echo of this passage from the pages of prophetic history. When the stronghold is removed, a formerly mute voice will rise. When Ezekiel's wife was taken suddenly, it was a sign of how swiftly comes judgment and/or change. And it happened today, too. And I think it will surely happen again.
Are You calling me into the gap only to swiftly remove me as a sign of how limited is the time left for revelation? Maybe not, but maybe so; and if so, I ask that You make me strong enough to endure such a thing, as well as the Ezekiel who loves me. I know You do not leave any to suffer any longer than is necessary to accomplish your larger purpose for good, if suffer they must. I do believe this.
I will study on these things. I will study on anointing oil, sacramental bread, and the "one who escapes." I will see why You are showing me these things...
So much has passed since this early wash of visionary stuff. So slow has been my learning curve in the most important part of it all.
Chastity, in its larger definition.
Today in my prayer journal, I quoted from Rolheiser's Forgotten Among the Lilies:
"To be chaste means to experience things, all things, respectfully and to drink them in only when we are ready for them. We break chastity when we experience anything irreverently or prematurely. This is what violates either another's or our own growth. It is the lack of chastity in experiencing, irreverence and prematurity, that lobotomizes the soul.
"Experience can be good or bad...Travel, study, achievement, sex, exposure to newness, the breaking of taboos, all can be good if experienced reverently and at their proper time.
"Conversely, they can tear the soul apart (even when they are not wrong in themselves) when they are not drunk in chastely, namely at a pace that respects fully both others' and our own growth."
I went on to observe that this is the crux of my trouble the whole time I've walked a path of receiving these things visionary. They "feel" so deliciously alive with a life that is incredibly intoxicating, and even when they are inscrutable, they pull the soul into a state of heightened awareness that is in itself compelling. I find myself wanting with urgency to both receive more of them and to see them manifested real-world. I do not stop to consider that often times--because of their very nature as revelation of Your creative work--they appear to "breach taboos," as Rolheiser puts it, in ways I need to allow my heart and mind time to process. I think both I and my spouse have struggled with the strain of waiting for You to "link learning to integration" within us, for we both have received inscrutable visions from Thee.
God help us understand how to walk in this prophetic-chastity better and how to honor You even in the context of Your profoundly good and life-giving messages! Help us to distinguish between what we are meant to see and what we are meant to do. To let go of the desire to force things to happen according to our limited understanding of what You're saying. We don't receive the visions for that reason. Help us to keep our side of the balance between why You give the vision and why we receive it that we might keep the childlike faith!
And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:2-3)
When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
I think I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;
As I stared once at a nursery door
Or a tall tree and a swing...
--G.K. Chesterton in A Second Childhood
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