Fair warning on this one: we're going head first down the rabbit hole and Kansas is going bye-bye. So here's your blue pill. If you keep reading, it's your own risk.
Ok. So I've written before about my condition. I am highly sensitive to lots of things. While you might sneeze, I'll have flu like reactions. While you might have indigestion, I go to the hospital. This makes holidays with obligatory feasts and ample treats particularly difficult. I often have weird dreams following food that my body doesn't want, so what follows could be related. But it struck me much different. Those dreams have a particular tone and themes. This was like other dreams I've had, if we want to call them that, but not like my usual body signals.
You might want to apply a rational interpretation to what I'm about to relate and that's fine, I've done that too. There could very well be more of gravy than of grave about this, to borrow from Mr. Dickens. But I'm not convinced that's all there is to it. In my experience, nothing is ever just this or that, but inextricably linked with everything else. So I'm going to write it as I experienced it and leave it there. Red pill down...diving into the hole.
You may have read about my past experiences in spiritualism. When one does that, certain things change and don't go back. Like many things in life, once you cross a line, you can't uncross it.
So last night, through a series of dream events, I found myself on a dock in a swamp with a couple unidentified people. There was a stroller with a baby in it. Somehow it was brought up that it was now widely accepted that it was not Lucifer who had been responsible for a certain unclear historical event involving a baby, but in fact, Lilith. I was alarmed at the mention because in spiritual realms to mention is to court the presence of, and in waking life...ok, we'll go with that...in waking life I had encountered lilith before and she is terrifying in the true sense.
Just then, as the dread of how she might appear was coming on me, a snake-like tentacle glided up on the dock from the water. The end had been cleaved off like an octopus in a Japanese restaurant. I yelled to the others that she was here and quickly kicked the writhing thing away only to find another reaching up. They grabbed the stroller and turned it over, spilling what had been the baby into the water, but fortunately it was now only blankets. (Thank God! My dreams are not always so sanitized.)
My heart quivered within me as a white shapeless molten form rose up from the water with the serpent arms. It quickly began to take a female shape as if moving through stages of plasticene scuplture until even the snake tails became human arms. There she stood with black hair and hellish eyes, a demonic half-smile on the well-formed mouth. She was larger than a human by at least double and stood in the swampy water while still extending above my head where I stood on the dock.
She addressed me familiarly. I quickly remembered in my fear that the only course was to resist and call for help. Demons have no inherant power, they are merely self-negations, perversions of created things. So in reality, they can only decieve and frighten. But if you've never encountered one like this, trust me, that fear is enough to make you forget your wits.
Therefore, rather than answer a single word and open the door for her, I rebuked that she was not wanted. Like Saruman in LOTR, if you let them speak, they'll get in your head in a heart beat. Like Gozer, you have to clear your mind. Or since that's impossible, you have to fill it with truth and higher power, which they can't combat. So I continued to shout that I was a son of Jesus (not sure where that wording came from) and that she had no power over me. She had no power here. That was all I could yell and I clung to it fiercely while trying to stay between her and the others.
She fought back with everything she had and the battle lasted several minutes.
As I gained some confidence I began to thrust my presence forward at her, like a spiritual shove with every affirmation and rebuke. Finally, she turned and fled, gliding over the water to a nearby road. I turned to chase her, wanting to kill her once and for all. She flew into a box truck, like UPS, only white like a bread truck, and drove away.
I quickly gave up pursuit realizing that it was not for me to kill one like her. Only to resist...which I had done...and she had fled...SHE had FLED! The mother of demons that had engendered such fear on my part had fled at my resistance! The original succubus that had plagued me for so many years in various forms had been driven out of my mind...in very literal dream imagery!
I woke with a start thinking I had only just drifted off to sleep, but it was morning. The battle had taken all night, but it was over.
Is this a bit of badly digested food? A phantasm of my hypersensitive body? Maybe, but maybe that pharmacaea opened the door for something more. Is the demon driven out? Is the hold broken on me? It's too soon to tell.
But I think it was Black Elk who said that you can tell a dream from a vision by how well it stays in your mind when you wake. This has shaken me to the point that I had to look more into it this morning.
I dared to look up lilith and to my surpise, I found she is often portrayed as partly serpent. I tell you, no where in my memory does that reference occur. I can't even recall looking for images of her. She is also often drawn with a certain dark-haired appearance, which she had assumed in my encounter. I'm not making conclusions. I can rationally surmise an explanation that still perfectly suits the outcome. But you know what? I don't really care what really happened, or what "real" even means. I care only about True, and in any case, this is a true story. Ding Dong the witch is gone! And I'm celebrating that for all it's worth. Thank God for deliverance and I pray it's for good!
Showing posts with label vision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vision. Show all posts
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Friday, July 3, 2015
Whisper
I look up from my place and see the Shepherd coming in. He sits down. He seems tired. My belly hurts. I crawl over and place my head against his thigh. He rubs my head behind my ear and under my chin. It feels good, reassuring.
Then he kneels in front of me and takes my head in both his hands. He gently lifts my eyes to his. Then he lays his forehead against mine. His eyes match mine, his nose on top of my nose. He whispers some words. I can't understand them; I am just a dog. But they sound wonderful, mysterious, full of meaning. I wish I could understand them.
Then I feel the words pass into me; from my ears and face they go all the way down through me and into my belly. And the pain there stops.
Then he kneels in front of me and takes my head in both his hands. He gently lifts my eyes to his. Then he lays his forehead against mine. His eyes match mine, his nose on top of my nose. He whispers some words. I can't understand them; I am just a dog. But they sound wonderful, mysterious, full of meaning. I wish I could understand them.
Then I feel the words pass into me; from my ears and face they go all the way down through me and into my belly. And the pain there stops.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Speak
Today as I was reading George MacDonald, a scene leapt off the page and pierced me right through. I could quote it, but it wouldn't possibly have the same effect as when it happened, so I won't bother.
Let me start at the beginning. I'm reading At the Back of the North Wind. From the very first, the description of the North Wind was remarkably like a sort of person I envisioned in a story I was writing once before. It was not so much a story, but a vision that seemed to want telling. Sort of like CS Lewis' image of Aslan that sparked the Narnia series. Of course I didn't know about Aslan and Narnia at the time.
Anyway, I tried to write a story about it, but the story wouldn't carry. It was really just this impression of a person. It's uncanny that more than a hundred years before, George MacDonald wrote a story about a character who looks nearly exactly as the one I saw. But muses and all...
So today I read a scene where North Wind says something that I very nearly said verbatim last year. Lest you think it's a common phrase that would naturally repeat, I'll tell you more. In the book, North Wind is leading Diamond (the child) across the high ledges of a cathedral. He's afraid he'll fall and she chastises him for not trusting her. He tells her he's not trusting because he may falter. And she replies that even if he fell and she lost her grip, she'd be after him such that she'd catch him before he hit the ground. And last year as my Goddaughter was afraid of falling out of a boat, I assured her that if she began to fall out, I'd be in the water before she got wet.
But this is only the precursor. A sign post that had me taking notice so I wouldn't miss what was coming. In this same scene, the words then jumped out as Diamond and North Wind talked of previously being higher and unafraid, but now being afraid of falling into the deep empty church. The lines were as if spoken to me. I know what they mean and it is beyond the story. This is exactly my apprehension of late.
But then North Wind leaves Diamond to make his way on his own, saying "Come after me". He is afraid, but then she blows a gentle puff in his face and he draws strength and moves forward. The blowing increases always gentle, but fortified with strength, and steadily infuses him as he moves. Right here is where it pierced like an icicle of light right into my brain. My eyes welled and overflowed. God was speaking these familiar words directly to me in that moment. I know the voice. I know the reaction. Call it crazy if you want, but it happened. It's not the first time.
This can be confirmed because it is timely. As I face trepidating circumstances, struggles with my place in the Kingdom, concerns over being alone, comes this necessary and direct comfort speaking to all of them perfectly and deeply. I don't expect you to understand, and I don't seek your approval or acknowledgement. Call me heretic even. This was for me. God speaks. Not just through some systematized list of methods, not even through one collection of writings. He speaks whenever and however He chooses, to whomever He chooses. And His voice is unmistakable.
I go no further than this. But no less far.
I don't know where or how, but I am linked to George and Jack and Henry and Theresa and Francesco. And I hear you God. I am coming after you across the buttresses and ledges and spires. I won't fear falling, nor the empty church below. My place is in your wind, whipping full around me. Help me never forget.
Let me start at the beginning. I'm reading At the Back of the North Wind. From the very first, the description of the North Wind was remarkably like a sort of person I envisioned in a story I was writing once before. It was not so much a story, but a vision that seemed to want telling. Sort of like CS Lewis' image of Aslan that sparked the Narnia series. Of course I didn't know about Aslan and Narnia at the time.
Anyway, I tried to write a story about it, but the story wouldn't carry. It was really just this impression of a person. It's uncanny that more than a hundred years before, George MacDonald wrote a story about a character who looks nearly exactly as the one I saw. But muses and all...
So today I read a scene where North Wind says something that I very nearly said verbatim last year. Lest you think it's a common phrase that would naturally repeat, I'll tell you more. In the book, North Wind is leading Diamond (the child) across the high ledges of a cathedral. He's afraid he'll fall and she chastises him for not trusting her. He tells her he's not trusting because he may falter. And she replies that even if he fell and she lost her grip, she'd be after him such that she'd catch him before he hit the ground. And last year as my Goddaughter was afraid of falling out of a boat, I assured her that if she began to fall out, I'd be in the water before she got wet.
But this is only the precursor. A sign post that had me taking notice so I wouldn't miss what was coming. In this same scene, the words then jumped out as Diamond and North Wind talked of previously being higher and unafraid, but now being afraid of falling into the deep empty church. The lines were as if spoken to me. I know what they mean and it is beyond the story. This is exactly my apprehension of late.
But then North Wind leaves Diamond to make his way on his own, saying "Come after me". He is afraid, but then she blows a gentle puff in his face and he draws strength and moves forward. The blowing increases always gentle, but fortified with strength, and steadily infuses him as he moves. Right here is where it pierced like an icicle of light right into my brain. My eyes welled and overflowed. God was speaking these familiar words directly to me in that moment. I know the voice. I know the reaction. Call it crazy if you want, but it happened. It's not the first time.
This can be confirmed because it is timely. As I face trepidating circumstances, struggles with my place in the Kingdom, concerns over being alone, comes this necessary and direct comfort speaking to all of them perfectly and deeply. I don't expect you to understand, and I don't seek your approval or acknowledgement. Call me heretic even. This was for me. God speaks. Not just through some systematized list of methods, not even through one collection of writings. He speaks whenever and however He chooses, to whomever He chooses. And His voice is unmistakable.
I go no further than this. But no less far.
I don't know where or how, but I am linked to George and Jack and Henry and Theresa and Francesco. And I hear you God. I am coming after you across the buttresses and ledges and spires. I won't fear falling, nor the empty church below. My place is in your wind, whipping full around me. Help me never forget.
Friday, September 30, 2011
You Have All You Need
This has been coming at me from so many angles lately and drumming through my mind. It is true on many levels and I don't even know how to describe it.
I was under a spell...illusioned...taken in by a ploy. The ploy told me that I didn't have all that I need. Not all I needed. It sounded very much like something I would acknowledge and believe, hence the deception. But this often happens that when I am oppressed by something...in this case the awareness of my own finality and vileness...a message is sent to me that will not desist.
I am a new creation. Jesus restored me and has given me life "to the fullest." There is no longer an condemnation for me. While I knew all of this on a different level, now it hits home in a deeper way which many will not understand because they are not inside me.
I was eating a poisoned apple. 99% true with one bit of lie. But any poison makes the apple unfit. And one bad one spoils the bunch, to extend the metaphor. So I was there believing some very true things: I am sinful. I am willfully so. I do not properly regard or react to the grace and gifts given to me. I am naturally depressive. I do have trouble understanding reality. I am angry often. But that's not all I am. This is how I look from the eyes of this world. But the new me, the one that is alive in Jesus' life is whole and perfected and has the entire universe of God's power at my disposal.
Jesus did not come to leave me unprepared. Orphaned again. Left to my own devices. He fixed it. He fixed everything. So I can believe that or I can believe that he did not. That his power is not enough for me.
I needed to hear this from the right places, enough times that it sunk in. I am unstoppable. I have the rest that I seek. I have the joy. It is all right here. There is nothing I lack, nor will there ever be.
I was like the dwarfs at the end of Narnia who refuse to see the provision around them...not for the same reasons as they, but the effect was the same. I could not see nor experience the goodness and the completion because i was too focused on something that is dead and has passed away.
I have all I need.
I was under a spell...illusioned...taken in by a ploy. The ploy told me that I didn't have all that I need. Not all I needed. It sounded very much like something I would acknowledge and believe, hence the deception. But this often happens that when I am oppressed by something...in this case the awareness of my own finality and vileness...a message is sent to me that will not desist.
I am a new creation. Jesus restored me and has given me life "to the fullest." There is no longer an condemnation for me. While I knew all of this on a different level, now it hits home in a deeper way which many will not understand because they are not inside me.
I was eating a poisoned apple. 99% true with one bit of lie. But any poison makes the apple unfit. And one bad one spoils the bunch, to extend the metaphor. So I was there believing some very true things: I am sinful. I am willfully so. I do not properly regard or react to the grace and gifts given to me. I am naturally depressive. I do have trouble understanding reality. I am angry often. But that's not all I am. This is how I look from the eyes of this world. But the new me, the one that is alive in Jesus' life is whole and perfected and has the entire universe of God's power at my disposal.
Jesus did not come to leave me unprepared. Orphaned again. Left to my own devices. He fixed it. He fixed everything. So I can believe that or I can believe that he did not. That his power is not enough for me.
I needed to hear this from the right places, enough times that it sunk in. I am unstoppable. I have the rest that I seek. I have the joy. It is all right here. There is nothing I lack, nor will there ever be.
I was like the dwarfs at the end of Narnia who refuse to see the provision around them...not for the same reasons as they, but the effect was the same. I could not see nor experience the goodness and the completion because i was too focused on something that is dead and has passed away.
I have all I need.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Lion
Prior to Christmas this year and following Avatar, I was lying in bed one morning, as I often do. It was too early to get up, but I am such a poor sleeper that I spend a lot of time awake in bed. I often try to fill this time in the morning and evenings with prayer and contemplation, which are not two separate things, but very much intertwined.
Anyway, I was lying in that state between fully awake and fully asleep and rolling over the ideas expressed in Avatar, what was beautiful about it, what was True amongst the commercial stuff...see the former post for more on that. I was wondering how much of a metaphor it could be for our time and what kind of metaphor that would be. This led to thoughts about metaphors in general and how they are powerful tools. How I've spent a lot of my life looking for metaphors to express Truth precisely as I understand it. How I had never been able to find one that I could really bite into. Some have come close...but like Bono says, I still hadn't found what I was looking for. And as Jack says, it's hard to beat the rich fertile metaphors we find in the Bible. At that moment, I had a vision...or a dream...or both, call it what you will. Jesus appeared to me as a lion...as Aslan from the Narnia books. Nothing was spoken, but something was communicated. It lasted only a moment, but in that dream-time, so much transpired.
I don't know that I could fully explain what I learned and gained from the experience, but I'm not sure that I should. These things are often meant only for the one who receives them and I only chronicle it here as a reminder, a remembrance to myself more than anything, that it did occur.
Just like the Galadriel experience posted in the early entries of this blog, I was profoundly humbled, overjoyed, and ashamed of all that I am not. One thing I can communicate is known to those who have these kind of experiences. There is a profound sense of unworthiness, like being embarrassed to be flesh, acutely aware of all my flaws, every time I've failed to be what I am created to be, of the true depth of my rebellion and helplessness. Like being totally inappropriate in so many ways. Going to a state dinner directly after mowing the grass in August only approximates an aspect of what I mean. But in that very moment is a deep unbounded love. And at the very moment that I think, "I'm so unworthy."
The reply comes, "I know; I'm choosing you."
Why Aslan? Why a fictional character? It has to do with metaphors and the role the extended metaphors of Narnia and Aslan have played in me. I am convinced that Aslan is far more than a fictional character. Jack must have known this image, this face, had seen it and felt it, and then wrote about it. Truly, it is cited this way in the biographies. Good God, the power of these moments falls so flat in writing. Imagine stepping into a story and finding with every step you take that it is far truer than you ever could have imagined. This is my life. It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Anyway, I was lying in that state between fully awake and fully asleep and rolling over the ideas expressed in Avatar, what was beautiful about it, what was True amongst the commercial stuff...see the former post for more on that. I was wondering how much of a metaphor it could be for our time and what kind of metaphor that would be. This led to thoughts about metaphors in general and how they are powerful tools. How I've spent a lot of my life looking for metaphors to express Truth precisely as I understand it. How I had never been able to find one that I could really bite into. Some have come close...but like Bono says, I still hadn't found what I was looking for. And as Jack says, it's hard to beat the rich fertile metaphors we find in the Bible. At that moment, I had a vision...or a dream...or both, call it what you will. Jesus appeared to me as a lion...as Aslan from the Narnia books. Nothing was spoken, but something was communicated. It lasted only a moment, but in that dream-time, so much transpired.
I don't know that I could fully explain what I learned and gained from the experience, but I'm not sure that I should. These things are often meant only for the one who receives them and I only chronicle it here as a reminder, a remembrance to myself more than anything, that it did occur.
Just like the Galadriel experience posted in the early entries of this blog, I was profoundly humbled, overjoyed, and ashamed of all that I am not. One thing I can communicate is known to those who have these kind of experiences. There is a profound sense of unworthiness, like being embarrassed to be flesh, acutely aware of all my flaws, every time I've failed to be what I am created to be, of the true depth of my rebellion and helplessness. Like being totally inappropriate in so many ways. Going to a state dinner directly after mowing the grass in August only approximates an aspect of what I mean. But in that very moment is a deep unbounded love. And at the very moment that I think, "I'm so unworthy."
The reply comes, "I know; I'm choosing you."
Why Aslan? Why a fictional character? It has to do with metaphors and the role the extended metaphors of Narnia and Aslan have played in me. I am convinced that Aslan is far more than a fictional character. Jack must have known this image, this face, had seen it and felt it, and then wrote about it. Truly, it is cited this way in the biographies. Good God, the power of these moments falls so flat in writing. Imagine stepping into a story and finding with every step you take that it is far truer than you ever could have imagined. This is my life. It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Friday, July 3, 2009
A Dream
I once had a dream that Jesus came to me and took me into a room where there was a large round table. On this table, something like a holographic dome appeared in which He showed me every detail of history and how it fit together. He showed me how He had orchestrated the whole of all happenings in the universe. And He showed me how current events were all woven into the plan. I watched as the universe and human existence unfolded before me like a fantastically beautiful symphony of complex interrelations, events rippling and folding into each other. I watched as the symphony passed beyond present time and continued into the ultimate end. I saw how the world and all sufferieng and all joy played together and how it would all unfold in vivid detail.
When it ended I was awed and honored at being shown and understood that even though I couldn't see how things played together from within my life, I now knew specifically how it would go and that it would all be well...better than well actually.
Then Jesus touched my mouth and said that He would erase the details from my mind because it was not for men to know.
When I awoke, I had no memory of the dream at all. I dressed and left for work. On the drive I was listening to the radio when...I know the exact spot it happened...something in a song, just a snatch of it, reminded me of the dream and the whole memory I just described flooded back, minus the details I had been shown. I remember the dream vividly, and I remember the clarity and sense everything made, but I can't in the least remember what specifically I was shown.
So, I know that history is not random. I know that the future is orchestrated and that the universe and our entire existence form a wonderfully beautiful work of art. Best of all, I know it will all end well...This is an unbelievable grace to someone like me who has so much trouble seeing the good in so much bad. And I know that I would not be able to fulfill my portion of that symphony if I knew all the details. So that too is a mercy.
When it ended I was awed and honored at being shown and understood that even though I couldn't see how things played together from within my life, I now knew specifically how it would go and that it would all be well...better than well actually.
Then Jesus touched my mouth and said that He would erase the details from my mind because it was not for men to know.
When I awoke, I had no memory of the dream at all. I dressed and left for work. On the drive I was listening to the radio when...I know the exact spot it happened...something in a song, just a snatch of it, reminded me of the dream and the whole memory I just described flooded back, minus the details I had been shown. I remember the dream vividly, and I remember the clarity and sense everything made, but I can't in the least remember what specifically I was shown.
So, I know that history is not random. I know that the future is orchestrated and that the universe and our entire existence form a wonderfully beautiful work of art. Best of all, I know it will all end well...This is an unbelievable grace to someone like me who has so much trouble seeing the good in so much bad. And I know that I would not be able to fulfill my portion of that symphony if I knew all the details. So that too is a mercy.
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