This relates to My Dream from last week.
This morning, after a weird week last week, I sat down to meditate. For much of last week, it was hard to get my thoughts under control. I read in the Bible quite a bit, but my meditations were more about focusing on assumptions, and less about the Promise part of Goddard’s teaching.
I guess I need to realize that both parts are important, but for some reason, I struggle with uniting the two halves into a whole.
Anyway, I sat down this morning determined to spend at least an hour meditating. My guess was that it would take at least 1/3 of that getting my thoughts under control.
I don’t think I’ve shared my favorite way to control my thoughts yet. If you’ve read Harry Potter, this idea won’t be unfamiliar, but I’ve grown to love it and it really does work.
In Harry Potter, Dumbledore uses a pensieve, illustrated above, to draw out and save his memories. Whenever my meditation times are filled with random thoughts, I imagine my own pensieve, and take my wand and gently put whatever thought or idea is trying to interrupt my meditation into storage.
It might sound silly, but it works. Other things that I really want to remember, but don’t want to focus on right now, I put on a nearby shelf. In this way, storing or shelving each thing that pops into my mind, I gradually reach the point where my brain has run out of interrupters, and I’m ready for whatever will be shown to me.
After all that, I hear a voice. “Choose wisdom, and in all your getting, get understanding.”
“That’s Proverbs,” I think.
Then, I’m dancing in front of God (I don’t always use music when I meditate, but when I do, it’s almost always a component of the meditation). “I AM God,” I think, and now I’m up on a stage, watching myself dance down below. “That’s my earthly body,” I realize.
My earthly body is wearing my favorite pair of blue jeans from 20+ years ago, and dancing and worshipping God as I used to see in my prayers.
After the dance, my body and I are united once again, and God asks me, “What do you request for your gift?” And I hear the voice I heard at the beginning. “In all your getting, get understanding.”
“Understanding,” I say. “And wisdom.”
God nods. “You don’t want to be rich?”
“I do,” I reply, “but I want Wisdom and Understanding.”
“Well said,” he replies.
“You don’t want a new house?”
“I do.” I say again, “but I want Wisdom and Understanding.”
“And a new car?”
“Yes, I do.” I answer for the third time, “but I want Wisdom and Understanding.”
And then I know that I have received my gifts. All of them. Money falls from the sky on top of me, and Nony is there, kneeling in front of me.
I drop dollar bills onto his head. He reaches for them and I drop hundreds on him. Then thousands. “Those (the thousands) are hard to find, they don’t make them anymore.” I tell him.
Nony is taken care of and he leaves. I dance on the falling money for a bit.
Now, there is an alter in front of me and I’m holding Tweet 1. I realize this is Abraham and Isaac, and I lay Tweet 1 on the alter. In my hand I hold a knife.
“There should be a voice now,” I think, “telling me not to harm him.” As if on cue, a voice says, “Stop!” and voices behind it echo it. “Don’t kill him.” “Don’t kill him, kill him, kill him.” the echoes repeat.
I look at my son. I think of the struggles he’s had, the things going on. I raise the knife.
“Stop!” The voices repeat. But they don’t go beyond my thoughts. They don’t finish the rest, to tell me there’s another sacrifice.
I look at God standing in front of me. God hasn’t spoken, standing there, watching to see what I do.
I think of all the times that Nony 1 has already been a sacrifice. How as a child, because I always knew he was God’s, I never felt like I could hold on too tight. I think of the things he’s had to go through in his young life. And I lift the knife.
“No,” I say, “it’s enough.” I don’t plunge the knife into him, I simply use it to slice a thin line down his stomach. And he pulls the wound apart and steps out, a new Tweet, covered in a new skin, leaving behind all those things that were holding him back.
There’s nothing holding him down now, and he smiles and walks off.
“One more thing,” I think. “A friend that needs a pay raise.” And I hear her excitedly telling me about her pay raise. And then I know that it is time to awake, and so I open my eyes.
