God changed my Dream-Vision...
... for many years I would close my eyes and see a vision of an ink line drawing of a bird sitting on a wire above a city scape...old-school antenna poking up above rooftops.
Then muffled words would float up, and the bird would cock it's head like a robin listening for worms. He would bounce three times and then tuck it's wings in like a falcon racing towards the noise.
As it got closer to the ground, the blurred words came into focus, and faces began to appear, twisted, with mouths open...and the muffled call became a clear plea for help. As the very last moment, wings would open and a rush of wind would explode from silent feathers and the cries for help would turn to shouts of praise and the black and white canvas would erupt in color.
I used to think that bird was "the church"... but as I awoke today I finally started to see I perhaps I believed it was me, not in a boastful, imperialistic, "mighty-whitey-savior" way...
but it was me in my own power rushing into the pain and suffering I grew up with and saw all around me. Broken families, addiction, anger, violence, weapons of hate, sadness, isolation.
When Jesus claimed my life, I had a bucket of Living Water that I would try and throw on the raging wildfires around me..and my bucket ran dry and I found a hole in my bucket and my ax was too dull, dear Liza, dear Liza... and I could not cut the straw to mend the hole the bucket... so the fire almost burned killed me.
So I sat down beside the waters of Babylon and tried to sing songs of heaven in this foreign land and I heard Jesus singing over me...
...and I am a happy man that my bucket has a Holy Thorn prick and I am convinced it came from The King's Crown as He held me tight.
and now, each week, I simply drive a rented van to a place that has welcomed me as a friend. They wait for me to pull up and then walk over and we take our little boxes out of the van and build a Kingdom that has no walls where Jesus presides over-and-with-us and we worship and eat and cloth each other.
Yesterday I got to watch mom's with kids in their arms and wrapped around their legs hand the Bread of Life to beaming faces, smiley face stickers placed on street-worn jackets produced hymns of laughter and thanks, folks living with section 8 caring for those still waiting...
I preached on the Eucharist..."thanksgiving" as it is translated... and we all came to the Table together and busted out in praise.
