The Return

How can I put the biggest change of my life thus far, and 2 months of that transition, into one post? No way exists.

I can simply retrace my steps one moment, one memory at a time. I do believe the maxim that one cannot simultaneously live life and record it is appropriate here. To step out of the moment to become ones own historian seems to be the necessary shift required to successfully look back and reflect. It is a shift I have had very little motivation to make, as may be obvious.

So rather than spend endless words and phrases in a vain attempt to recount the last two weeks, let’s instead enter the realm of the present. And the present finds me in an emotional state. At this moment of writing I have awoken from a vivid and disturbing dream. Some might say that dreams are simply a collection of random thoughts and mental images that the brain pieces together while doing its nightly restoration process. Perhaps they can lead to imaginative feats and insights into great mysteries. At least that what the Science Channel told my children and I today. It was not mentioned, however, how dreams can impact the emotion and the soul. That’s what happened when I struggled to awake from this nightmare, or a ‘bad dream’.

Without being graphic as to upset or belittle anyone that has ever truly gone through what I merely dreamed about, suffice it to say that in this dream I lost something more precious than anything to me. I realized the character was fictional, but the emotional impact was as if it was as real as the touch of the keys below my fingers right now.  And anything I could write about – the struggles, the financial stress, the family and relational issues, the questions and concerns of the day – melted in that moment of utter imaginary devastation. It was as if I was sent a shock test – an uninvited moment of clarity that focused my mind on what means the most, at the immediate exclusion of everything else that doesn’t.

And so, I had to pray. I had to realize that He who is responsibile for existence is responsible for all that maintains existence, and place it in His hands freshly again, like the first bud of a plant whose seed has just burst from the soil – tender, fragile, but very much there.  The thought crossed my mind in this time of hand wringing over financial and political issues that those who may be looking for a safe haven of peace, may be turning to Christianity simply out of the process of elimination. As for me, I can find no greater solace than the One who demands all of me is also the one that gave all for me. And without that assurance, that there is a God, a Father that willingly accepted the loss of his only child, I could not face the prospect of raising my own children with the full knowledge that their well-being is beyond my physical ability to control.  Their safety and protection requires bigger hands.

If I maintain a better writing schedule, I’d be happy. I do hope that my dream experience is not the only factor motivating my return to writing. If so, would you join me in praying for more dreams of love, light, and laughter – dreams we can experience with our eyes wide open and our conscious minds alert and receiving. Dreams that we can see smiling, dancing before us in the forms of our families, friends, and loved ones. They are the ones that matter. And like dreams, they can be gone in a fleeting blink, before we have shook ourselves free from the slumber of misplaced priorities and mismanaged affections. There is precious little of today’s news and our daily work that will matter in the scheme of eternity. To love and cherish those we are with now is not one of those things that will not be carried into a deeper, longer lasting moment.

And with that, enjoy this day. Your dreams are waiting.

acp