This short piece of creative writing is a dream that I had, a long time ago, and has stayed with me over the decades since. Interestingly, shortly after I had this dream, I went into a period of very difficult emotional and spiritual turmoil, almost to the point of not being functional any more in my daily life, as the leaders of the christian community I lived in at that time, didn’t approve of my engagement to the wonderful woman who has now been my wife for nearly 26 years. In the end, as I could not recognise any biblical reason for their concerns, nor any concerns about the character of the woman in question, I persisted with the engagement and we married, in April 1995, something I have never regretted for a single moment. I was later able to be reconciled with the community leader who had been the main source of the conflict and he even went as far as to give his blessing and approval of our marriage. I didn’t really need it any more at that point – but it was great to have it!
The kind late summer sun meant that it was easily warm enough to sit outside, so the table was set up underneath the linden trees, the gently moving branches sending light and shade across the tabletop, where a crisp white cloth bore finest china, silver cutlery, several homemade cakes, a bowl of fruit and pots of steaming coffee and tea. My kind hosts, the two ladies from Germany and the gentleman from America got proceedings underway, the cake was cut and we began.
The interruption came not long after….. Coming on quite quickly, I very suddenly and with no prior warning, began to experience something like an unendurable grief welling up inside of me, overpowering and absolutely not to be resisted. To my consternation, I began weeping, powerfully and uncontrollably.
I glanced up at my companions and even in my distraught condition, noticed that they seemed utterly unperturbed by this sudden outbreak. They looked at me with expressions of deep love and tenderness, moving closer, placing hands on my back and shoulders. Other than that, it seemed almost as though they had been expecting something like this to happen, had no particular plan but were quietly confident that all was unfolding as it should.
Worse (or so I thought at the time) was to unfold though…. The tears which were following freely down my face seemed to take on a deeply unpleasant viscous and sticky quality, I became intermittently blinded, and was horrified and repulsed to find that the tears had developed into a pale sticky pus, now flowing out of not just my eyes, but from my nose, ears, nostrils, mouth and every pore in the skin in my face and scalp. It got everywhere, coffee, cake and fruit were all ruined and I wept on, managing, in between times, to catch a glance at my companions, still gazing at me fixedly with absolutely unbroken love, concern and tenderness.
I managed to utter a broken I’m so sorry…. However, looking again at their faces, I realised that apologies were superfluous and massively missing the point somehow, as I noticed not even the slightest shade of repulsion or disgust at the horrible display in front of them, as they – quietly and confidently – with no bloody sacrifices or tiresome incantations – invoked that powerful and loving presence, with it’s mercifully muted light – to come and do with all of us, whatever it was he so desired.
God Bible Life 