Vision, blindness, and Christ's church

I mentioned in my last blog post that Jesus has been with me in my dreams.

I think God often visits us in our dreams.

In the end however, our dream lives are very much like our everyday, wide awake lives. In either state, asleep or awake, we almost always fail to notice the divine.

I am inclined to believe that many of us do encounter the divine in our dream lives; but I also believe that most of us tend to discount much of what we discover when we are awake again.

The conscious mind is forever trying to demystify God.

I have reached a place in my life where I no longer want to demystify. I only want to live the Divine Presence; but I do find that this is incredibly hard work, because everything in both myself and the world, is constantly pulling me from that precious divine center...

Yes, well this is a post about my dream life and about Christ, so let's just get to the dream shall we?

In my dream, I had just entered the auditorium lobby on my way to watch my two youngest daughters dance in their spring ballet production of "Willy Wonka".

There were hundreds of people milling about, but when I opened the auditorium door I encountered absolute silence and pitch black darkness. I could neither see nor hear a thing. Strangely enough, it felt as though I were the only one there.

As I glanced to where the stage should be, something happened.

Faces began to emerge from the darkness. The first face was that of my pastor. He stumbled forward, groping and blind. It was clear to me that he could not see. He kept calling out, "Hello? Is anyone there?"

Next to him I saw a young girl. She was eight or so, and she recoiled from the pastor. To me, it seemed she mistook his blindness for drunkenness and was afraid.

More faces emerged. All kinds of faces. Young faces, old faces, rich faces and poor faces.

Each person emerged and remained separate and distant from the other. In the middle of them all, stood my pastor, blindly reaching for those whom he sensed were there but could neither see nor reach.

Then a hushed stillness fell upon the auditorium. Every person on the stage stood in a state of intense alertness, all eyes turned toward the center aisle.

Jesus appeared.

There was no fanfare, no bright lights to announce his presence, yet every eye was upon him, even my pastor's blind eyes gazed intently, as if seeing every precious detail of Christ's person.

As Christ approached them, my pastor fell to his knees and cried, "My Lord!"

Jesus walked up to him, knelt down and kissed his eyes. Then both of them rose, and Christ began joining hand to hand, until everyone on the stage stood connected, and united.

Jesus smiled. He turned toward me and said, "This is my church."

"Jerri, will you stand with us?" Jesus asked holding out his hands to me.

There he was! Christ! Christ was standing next to my blind pastor (who in real life isn't blind at all). Christ was standing hand in hand with every conceivable type of person. Christ was standing with His church..

And Christ was asking me, would I join Him and stand with His church too?

Oh I wanted to stand! I wanted to run to Him. I wanted to run to Christ and to kiss him, to kiss my blind pastor, to kiss the child next to him....but I just sat.

Then I woke up and everything and everyone was gone...but, the question still remains.

Will I stand with Christ's church?

Do I have what it takes to stand with the church in both its vision and its blindness?

Am I willing to humbly join hands with my brothers and sister?

I think I am.

I am.

What about you?