Apr 02 | Two Visions (from Facebook)

I posted this on Facebook a little while ago, and I thought it would be cool to post here as well. The original post had quite a few folks tagged in it, because with conversation or presence or what have you they had contributed to the thought-process. The response I got was good, so I figure I’ll share it.

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So lately I’ve been considering the vocation to the priesthood, and its sacramental aspects. I haven’t been given the chance to consider these much at my school except in the class we took on sacraments and in one of Harold Munn’s classes, so I’ve been doing a lot of writing and pondering on my own. In the time I started thinking about it, I’ve had two visions. They weren’t ecstatic visions – I haven’t had one of those, and all visions are not ecstatic – some are merely flights of the imagination, in a Brueggeman kind of sense. They are just as legit as the ecstatic ones, because I believe that the Spirit draws us to notice these things.

 

The first of these two visions I had walking down the street several months ago. I was just crossing 3rd Avenue at Balsam and the sun was setting and throwing its light down 3rd. I looked down and found myself bathed in orange light, and opened my hand. The feverish light made it look like I had a palmful of fire. I immediately went home and started meditating on the idea that a priest is called to have a palmful of fire. What does it mean? Who could ever be qualified to have such a thing?

 

The next vision occurred quite a while later at a Friday noon service at the Cathedral, at which I serve. As I stood listening to the Eucharistic prayer, I saw that the angle of the standing torches made it such that I could see the candlelight flickering along the inner wall of the chalice. My mind was blown, man! Suddenly, along with my palmful of fire, I could also see a cupful of fire.

 

I thought this could be no coincidence, and started considering both of the visions together. The thought of being called to have a palmful of fire by ministering a cupful of fire to someone was terrifying to me! I felt like I couldn’t possibly be worthy of such a thing, even though I did not think of it as my being particularly blessed over others, but rather as being someone who was called to proclaim holiness and hold onto holiness so that someone else could take it from my hands and receive a blessing from it and, hence, from God.

 

I eventually found myself in chapel with a spiritual advisor (although not my spiritual director) in complete despair over a sinful self-loathing I have been battling for some time, the persistent thought that God must have made a mistake, and their battle with the deep sense of call in my bones, the quiet voice that spoke to me seven years ago and started me on this path. I was talking with this advisor about my journey, about moving from a priestly call to a thought that my call must be diaconal, and back again, and how the sacraments are articulated so differently in an Anglican mind than they are in a Reformed mind. It eventually culminated in my saying, “Even deacons stand next to the fire.”

 

Finally, I found myself alone in the third floor lounge, writing furious notes to God. God answered back in my own voice. Here’s what I wrote. It was all written together, but the italics were a separate voice, so I added the two “voices.”

 

[The Soul:] “Why do you seek me out? Why do you sow your embers in me? I scuttle around in the ashes, searching for pieces of gold to give you, but there is nothing. Charred papers, flowers dried to lace, charcoal, puffs of lint and shards of bone. This is no gift for a king. This is no bread for my fasting beloved.

No – you have given me your own gift. The king extends riches to his peasant, and there are no cameras – it’s not a photo-op gift. It’s freely lovingly given. Your embers lie sleeping – let my sister ruach breathe on them and they will flare alight.

I do not seek to carry fire. You ran ahead of me, skirts held to the knee, a young lamb. I followed to the bush, burning in the desert. How can you dare to ask me to take a flaming branch from it? You say I will not be consumed but I will – I am already. It’s easy enough to drink the cup – to consume furious, beautiful love. But to hold white hot silver, hold it long enough to serve everyone else, long enough to anoint, to hold, to heal – this is too much for me.

How could you do this to me? How could you touch the coal to my mouth and hands? How could you put your trust in a skeleton?”

 

[The Beloved:] I will do as I wish.

 

You were not a bundle of nerves in your mother before I knew you.

You did not have eyes before I decided what you would see.

You did not have fingers before I blessed them.

 

Why do you fear?

I have raised more than skeletons.

I have raised nations and sanctified dust.

I have danced with the lame and befriended death.

I have hallowed stones.

I have hallowed dirt.

I am the deep.

You are mine.

I am yours because I love you.

 

I do not pity you.

I do not love you because no-one else will.

I do not love you because I am afraid no-one else will love me.

I do not love you for what you have done or not done.

I love you with my whole heart because I can.

I love you because I made you.

I love you because I can,

and I want to.

I love you and I want you within me.

I will pursue you.

I will sit outside your door in the rain and sing songs.

I refuse to not love you.

I pledge to annoy you ceaselessly until you hear my love.

It wouldn’t matter if you didn’t love me back.

My love is not conditional or dependent.

I want you only to know my love.

It is up to you to share it.

I think you should.

Otherwise it will flood your house through no work of your own.

It will burst out of your windows and cover everyone.

 

How do I hold a palmful of fire? LOVE.

How do I drink a cupful of fire? LOVE.

How do I serve a cupful of fire? LOVE.

 

How do I serve love?

 

 

LOVE.

 

 

Amen.

-Clarity