For a while now, I've wanted to paint some of my dreams that have meant so much to me over the years. I started this one a few weeks back, but I felt compelled to "finish" it this morning.
So, we've been involved in a Harry Potter Vacation Bible School this week at St. Timothy's, and it's really been an awesome experience. For those of you who've known me for a long time, when Harry Potter first showed up a number of years ago, I was invited to sign a petition to keep it out of our public library. Fortunately, I didn't, but the books certainly worried me, what with all their witches, warlocks, wizards and magic. As I fretted over the books, and the fact that my step daughter was voraciously reading them, and I couldn't stop her, I heard this "voice" inside myself saying, "Why don't YOU read it for yourself and decide." So, I checked it out of the library (in a brown paper bag) and took it home to read. Couldn't figure it out! But something even then changed inside of me, and I just knew it was ok--not to worry.
And now, here I am all these years later, participating in VBS Hogwart style. That's the story of my life! Actually, it really is. I had this dream back in the 90's, and it's dawned on me this week, that this was my own initiation into the heroine's journey--my own "owl mail", so to speak. I hope to illustrate how the dream unfolded, but this was my invitation to leave the pack and follow my own path. I take so much more liberty with Scripture now-adays, so I hope you don't mind if I take a very well-known passage and put a twist on it.
Jesus said, "I am the way..." That Scripture has been interpreted for most of my life to segregate us into two camps: the Right Way, the Jesus way, or the Wrong Way, any other way.
But what if Jesus meant something else? What if he heard a voice in his own ear saying, "This is the way; walk in it." And he did. What if that's what he's saying to us. What if he said something like, "I've had an invitation to walk my own path with integrity. I've left the herd mentality behind, and I've learned to walk MY path, the way of the heart. And that's YOUR invitation as well. Walk as I've walked. Follow your heart. Listen to the Voice inside of you, and walk with integrity the path opened up before you."
I don't dare argue this--I'm not a theologian as has been pointed out to me many times before, but this is MY experience. I heard a voice. I dreamed a dream. I received a letter from the Owl--an invitation to go in a different direction. And I've followed it as best I know how. This is what Jesus has taught me.
O, by the way, that path isn't "safe". I read this poem a couple of months ago, and I love it. Following our own path, listening to our own heart, and singing our own song isn't safe--but it's honest, and it's real.
The Fire
in the Song
The mouth opens and fills the air with its vibrant shape
Until the air and the mouth become one shape
And the first word
your own word
Spoken from that fire
Surprises burns
Grieves you now because you made that pact
With the dark presence in your life
He said, “If you only stop singing
I’ll make you safe”
And he repeated the line,
“I’ll make you safe”.
Knowing you would hear it as the comforting sound
Of a door closed on the fear at last
But his darkness slipped under your tongue and became the dim cave
Where you sheltered and grew in that small place
Too frightened to remember the songs of the world
Its impossible notes
And the sweet joy that flew out the door
Of your wild mouth as you spoke
~ David
Whyte ~
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