A Vision

About a year and a half ago my pastor asked me to preach for him one Sunday. I informed him I was totally dry; there was nothing on my mind or in my spirit which I felt needed sharing with the congregation. That very week, during a time of contemplation/prayer, I received a vision! It was a very dramatic, vivid vision; it occurred totally visually. It happened in about a minute or two. So, even though it takes five minutes to describe, keep in mind that this all occurred very quickly, in a very short amount of time.

Later I called my pastor and said that indeed, I did have something to share! I am going to share the vision itself in this posting, and leave any commentary or interpretation to future postings. I would, however, love to get some feedback: what do you see in this vision? What is God saying to us through this?

Here, then, is that vision:

Edge of the desert; a large tent at the edge of a village; the tent is quite fancy and rich looking, for a tent. Inside this tent works a teacher guild which has grown up over the centuries in their society.

This guild of teachers is very careful about the qualifications of who gets admitted to their exclusive group. Years of instruction and preparation occur before new members are allowed to participate in their craft.

The primary task of this guild is the construction of an elaborate model of a building. The structure is made mostly of wood, some stones. Each individual piece is exquisitely crafted with great care before being placed. And prior to each new piece being added there is much discussion and debate. The entire structure is looked at, and discussed, ad infinitum.

Centuries have gone into this project. Great pride is taken in the structure, and its meaning and place in the life of their society. And the teacher guild is proud of their mandate of taking care of the construction and developing it, elaborating on what has been previously built. Each generation of teachers is conscious of building upon earlier foundations. Great respect is given to what has come before. Because of this respect and care, it takes longer and longer as time goes on, to effect any changes in the structure.

It is understandable, then, that extreme anger was ignited when one of the new, younger teachers came dashing into the tent one day, robes flying. As he burst into the tent through one of the flaps, he bumped against one corner of the elaborate structure, causing that corner to collapse. After a brief moment of shocked horror, all of the teachers present immediately tackled him, throwing him to the ground, shouting accusations at him. After subduing him, and securing him from causing any more harm with his recklessness, they began discussing his penalty. The trial was brief, since it was clear to all of them that the young man must die. Still incredibly angry, they dragged him out into the open to stone him.

Unnoticed, in their haste to exact justice, was a tent flap left undone. As they were stoning the young man to death, a great wind blew in from the desert, completely destroying the entire structure. All that was left was an unsightly pile of sticks and stones. Centuries of work was undone in a matter of moments. There was much wailing; cries of despair could be heard for miles, as not only the teachers, but the entire society beat their breasts in grief.

There were, however, a few friends of the young teacher who was killed, who had supported him in his rash teachings. As things began to settle down following this tumultuous day, these friends gathered quietly in the tent. They began to put together some of the sticks and stones left from the old, elaborate structure. Tentative and small at first, they were persistent.

Once again, as generation after generation continued to work in the tent, the structure took form. They realized, right from the beginning, that the new structure could never duplicate the beauty and complexity of the old. So they took what they could salvage out of the pile of rubble, and fashioned an entirely new structure. New pieces were crafted, and fitted together with the old.

As this new structure grew and took form, the teacher guild also grew, once again taking on great importance in their society. As before, great care was taken in preserving what was already built, protecting and developing it, spreading messages of its glory throughout the countryside.

Although very different from the earlier structure, it was impressive nonetheless. They had only dimming memories of the original structure, but through much debate and discussion, they were able to recapture some of the glory and beauty of the old structure. Indeed, many were of the opinion that the new structure was even more glorious and grand than the old had been.

Once again, there were complex arguments raised for each new piece added. Nothing was done without great care and deliberation. As before, the more time that passed, the longer it took for each new addition or modification to be accepted. Greater disagreements with new pieces meant more ponderous processes to get any changes made.

Babylon threads

If you copy and paste the link below (you may have to create a "new tab"), you will be able to listen to a very powerful song, one of the threads which began to come together for me the past few days. Even though it is a YouTube clip, the only video is a cover of Sinead O'Connor's album on which this haunting song appears. So, you can listen while you read, without missing anything!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5xYnBghap4

Hearing this song on my iPod brought back a memorable sermon heard way back in the seventies! It was a prophetic message, preached by a dearly loved mentor/pastor, John Ratzlaff. (I believe he was basing his teaching on a prophetic book he had read, but I can't remember this source.)

The essence of Rev Ratzlaff's message is that Babylon, as portrayed in Revelation 18 & 19, can be interpreted today as the world of international business.

The original meaning of course, the way the Revelator's message would have been understood by his readers, is that Babylon was Rome. Throughout history, readers of these Biblical words would have interpreted Babylon as whichever oppressive regime they happened to find themselves under. These are words of hope for every generation of Christians for 2000 years! In the seventies, in the USA, it was easy to see Babylon as referring to Washington, to the US military/industrial complex, etc. The US was just coming out of the Vietnam fiasco, and we were trying to deal with that.

John Ratzlaff comes along and says, no, the USA as Babylon is too limited. In today's world the oppression and dominance comes from more than just the USA. There are powers at work in our world which are beyond any one government, beyond any one country. These powers are best described as international business corporations, unaccountable to any one country. They are beyond the controls and limits any national government may want to impose.

Can anyone tell me anything has changed in the last 30 - 35 years?!!! It appears to me that the dominance of international finance has increased hugely. It has become more overt, less hidden than it might have been three decades ago. There is more awareness and discussion of this trend than ever before.

Another "Babylon" thread: During the last few years I have become more aware of the power-behind-thrones of our world. Through books, articles and radio interviews, I have heard of groups of powerful people (mostly men) like the Tri-Lateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and The Bilderberg group. These are the ones who pull the strings, who control governments, who make global decisions, who manipulate events in order to consolidate their dominance of the world. It is not difficult to sympathize with conspiracy theorists who speculate that these power-mongers deliberately created last fall's global financial meltdown as a means to further consolidate their power.

Another thread: Last winter I joined a small group working their way through a study of Daniel in the Bible. This study was led by Beth Moore, in a series of videos. She began every video with a little talk about walking the halls and streets of Babylon. Daniel, of course, is full of Babylon imagery.

I really think Beth Moore was onto something. I don't think she fully understood the depths to which we are living in Babylon; her take on it was along the lines that our obsession with consumerism is Babylon. I am saying that Babylon is a much more perverse, all-encompassing power seeking outright world dominance.

To summarize: I believe that these powerful figures behind the scenes who are seeking world dominance are repeating the Genesis 11 scene. They are building a tower. In Genesis, of course, it is portrayed as a physical tower of bricks and mortar, usually called the "Tower of Babel". In the 21st century I believe that the "Tower of Babel" is financial and political.

The world players seek to consolidate power in a few. They seek to control the direction the entire world goes. In so doing they are setting themselves up for power in direct opposition to the desires of our Creator, the Source of all power. They are swiftly moving the world into a position of defiance of this Source. And I also believe that as in Genesis 11, Source will not allow this to go on forever. A showdown looms!

We, as people of Spirit, are called to participate in this contest of wills. Will we respond to this call of increasing spiritual awareness, of a growing sense of membership in God's kingdom? Will we seek first God's kingdom, trusting that he will provide us with our needs? Will we cease worrying about tomorrow trusting that Source knows what we need?

Or will we take the other side, resisting attacks on "Babylon"? Will we support financial growth-without-restraint, ignoring ecological care? Babylon says economy first, environment second. Babylon says use all our resources as quickly as we can, make as much money as we can while the making is good. Babylon sees us as consumers, and wants to keep us compliant through fear of the future. Babylon does not want us to have any hope that things can change. "Yes we can!" is certainly not a slogan of Babylon!

We are living in Babylon; I have no doubt. But we are children of a different kingdom. We can live without fear; we can live in love and trust.

a "New Age" Church?

In the mid-eighties I became aware of an increasing search in society for the spiritual. For a century western society had been setting aside the spiritual, the mystical, the paranormal. Anything that could not be scientifically verified was deemed unimportant. This left a deep hole in us; our hearts were empty.

Accompanying my awareness of society's search is that the answers were not coming from Church; the ones searching were certainly not going to Church to find fulfillment. In fact, my sense of Church was that it was fighting this search which was happening in secular society.

I remember one conversation in which I expressed appreciation for a certain musician. "Oh, but his music is so New Age," as if categorizing it as such made it unacceptable for a Christian. Anything that could be labelled "New Age" was seen as non-Christian, if not outright "of the devil", at least back then!

That assertion was certainly a conversation-stopper! Later on I thought about that comment a lot. Isn't Christianity a New Age religion? Haven't we preached an upcoming New Age for centuries? Isn't the New Age what we are striving for? Then why didn't the Church embrace the "New Age" movement and give it some direction? Why could the Church not have at least engaged in some dialogue about the "New Age"?

I sense a rapidly growing spirituality in the world today. To me this is tremendously heartening. It is definitely not something to fight against! In fact, if we do fight against this I suspect we fight against God himself! I believe sincerely that what we are sensing is God waking up his creation.

If the Church doesn't participate in this awakening, it may well find itself on the sidelines in the most important game in history. The Source will accomplish his purposes; have no doubts on that score! If the Church fights what the Creator is doing, it will find itself shunted aside as God works.

For too long the Church has had a fortress mentality. It has tried to defend what it has, what it was; it has tried to regain ground it thinks was lost. "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" may be truer that we think! That is, it may be the mighty fortress which is our God, not the other way round.

We need to relax, people. We need to trust God that he knows what he is doing. We need to seek out the ways he is moving in our world and join him, not fight him.

Another disturbing pattern I have seen in Churches is fear of the devil. But that is another posting!

Another question raised here is, how many people need to awaken before society changes? What is the critical mass? Again, a posting for the future!

book review

Our Lady of Kibeho, Immaculee Ilibagiza, 2008

Most of us know Rwanda only from the appalling news of the 1994 genocide. Around one million Rwandans were brutally hacked to pieces in an orgy of killing of one ethnic group by another.

This book gives an entirely different view of this country. It is a young woman's account of several people who began receiving visions and messages from heaven in 1982 and following. These messages were overwhelmingly exhortations to love each other, and messages of how much God loves them. There were a few messages and visions of the coming slaughter, but most of the time the messages were inspirational.

These visions happened in the remote village of Kibeho, in southern Rwanda. They began with one visionary, a young student at a Catholic school. Soon several others begin receiving visions, including one girl who had bullied the first two visionaries!

Word got out and people began flocking to Kibeho to witness these apparitions. Over a period of years thousands and thousands of people saw and heard what was happening in Kibeho. The Roman Catholic Church, initially sceptical, soon had to acknowledge these apparitions as legitimate.

The apparitions were almost exclusively Mary, the mother of Jesus, appearing to these students. The feelings experienced by the visionaries was of unbounded love and peace. Though only the visionaries could see and hear Mary, they would relay messages to the audience. Often what the audience could hear was one side of a conversation. During these trances the visionaries were totally oblivious to outside stimuli. As the Church was investigating these apparitions they would try all sorts of things to try and distract the visionaries, including noise, pain, slapping, pinching, pouring water over them, etc.

I found this story very compelling. It was certainly a picture of Rwanda I had not experienced before. Immaculee's story is well-written; her dedication to broadcasting these events is very evident. She does not want her country known only for brutality. She has written of her own protection from the killing in other books; in this book the genocide receives only brief treatment.

As Rwandans have picked up the pieces of their lives and their society following the genocide, it is heartening to hear and see what is happening there. Again, using Kibeho as a focus, people have been healing from their torturous past by flocking once more to this village to honour Mary and Jesus. A shrine, a church, accommodations for guests, a school, have all sprung up in this village during the last decade.

My own reactions:

1) This story is written from a very Roman Catholic perspective. As such, I have to look past much of the RC piety and see the spirituality and messages contained in this story.

2) I think God's grace is evident: to Roman Catholic people the divine appears as Mary. This is what they expect, and Source accommodates! I must put aside my judgementalism of Catholicism.

3) Protestants have lost much sense of the feminine in the Divine by largely ignoring Mary. It was lovely to sense the motherly love the female visionaries received from Mary. We protestants have to work so hard to recapture some sense of the feminine in "God".

4) One of the threads running through the messages received by the visionaries is that our time is short. This corresponds with my own perspective. We as a human race need to get our s__tuff together! History is coming to a culmination of some sort.

5) God speaks in many ways. We cannot sit in judgement of how he might choose to appear or speak, or where or to whom.

6) God continues to speak today. The Creator still cares deeply for his creation. There is an unbounded love and acceptance of the Divine towards us. I think this story is only one of many ways in which the King of the Universe is speaking to his creation today.

7) It is ironic that it takes this, but in a way, the impact of the apparitions is increased by the genocide. If the genocide had not happened, would we be reading this book? Maybe the Divine knew this? Maybe the apparitions happened in Rwanda because of the upcoming slaughter?

I would recommend this book, with the proviso that the reader is able to look beyond the Roman Catholicism inherent in the story. It is a hopeful look at a country, a people, able to put behind them some of the worst imaginable atrocities and once again build their lives and their society into a positive environment.

"Church"

Just about a year ago I was searching for a new church home. I met with the pastor of a church in my neighborhood, to "check" him out. I told him that I did not need a church which would tell me how and what to believe; I wanted a church where it was okay to ask questions, a group of people who were comfortable living with questions, as opposed to needing to have answers.

That pretty much sums up the place I find myself in right now. I am very comfortable not having all the answers, not being able to figure everything out exactly. I sense there are things happening in our world, and probably in the universe! I don't know where everything is going; I don't know how everything will turn out. But I trust (bolded to indicate a connection to one of the themes of this blogsite); I believe there is a force, a power in the universe which is in control of things. I believe this ultimate source of power is benevolent, a loving energy, if you will. I willingly place myself in the care of this loving, spiritual energy, and seek to follow its lead, and facilitate it in whatever way I am able. (Thus this blog!)

I believe that we are living in an incredibly exciting time; I sense things are moving towards some sort of culmination point. I feel very fortunate to be living in a time like this. There is much fear in our world right now; I do not share this fear. I have full trust that we are being taken care of, that we are being led towards some thing. And I believe that we are participants in whatever it is that is happening. We are each given tasks to accomplish.

Another thing I told the young pastor last summer was that while I have ultimate and complete faith in The Source, in "God", I do not have the same sort of faith in Church, in organized religion. I view Church (and I will use a capitalized "Church" when speaking of it in general terms, as in "organized religion") as a very human entity. As such it is full of human foibles and errors. It amazes me that even with such a jaundiced view of Church, I continue to participate in it! But, I guess I see myself as very human as well, with my own foibles, my own shadow side. So why not join myself with other humans who are seeking answers just as I am?

How this trust, or faith, in God, if not in the Church, plays out in my life during the present time will be the subject of future posts.

"God"

In his book, Soul Survivor, Paul Hawker details his search for deeper meaning in life. He goes on a spiritual quest, heading for the mountains to spend time alone with God. As he learns to listen to God speak, ofttimes directing his smallest moves, Hawker comes to realize that his previous understanding of "'God' just seems too small. It is lesser, definable, cloying, diminutive and excluding. What I experienced that day and from then on is expansive, inclusive, majestic and outrageous, an exorbitant and flagrant love, overwhelming in its capacity to accommodate and encompass anything - from the most monstrous evil to the highest good. All are contained by The Source." (p88)

I also, as I grow in my understanding and experience of who "God" is, find my past images of "God" to be woefully inadequate. So in my ramblings, I may often use other terms for "God" in an effort to move beyond the limits of a churchy, sunday-school image of "God". I really like the name Paul Hawker uses, "The Source". I may also use "The Divine", "The Universe", etc. However, given all that, I have grown up in the church, and find it difficult to move beyond the language at times! So, forgive me when I begin to sound jargony! I want to say things in non-churchy language, but will likely slip into default verbiage often.

Years ago a mentor was using diagrams in teaching about the spiritual journey we are on. He taught us that our image of God ought always to be drawn with dotted lines, never solid, fixed lines. I believe that if the image of "God" in our minds is too fixed, too solid, we come dangerously close to idolatry. We create "God" in our own image!

As I have grown spiritually through my life, my own image of "God" has changed drastically. I would say that at present "God" to me is more akin to "the force" as used in Star Wars, than anything else. "The force be with you, Luke." Was it Obi-Wan Kenobi saying that? I see God's force, or spirit if you will, as being present through all the universe, in every living thing, indeed, in every created thing.

So, keep your image of "God" fluid! And I highly recommend the book quoted above. Check it out; it is a fantastic story. The full title: Soul Survivor: A Spiritual Quest Through 40 Days and 40 Nights of Mountain Solitude, Paul Hawker, 1998, Northstone Publishing, Inc.