I
had an out-of-body experience last night.
My spirit rose up, hovering, to the ceiling, and looking back down, I
could see the two of us, Pam and me, laying side by side. And as I look at my sleeping wife, my spirit warms
with gratitude at the sight of my life-partner, and how God has blessed me with
the gift of her friendship and love.
Over to one side, Bob the dog whimpers and twitches on his bed, chasing
phantom bunnies in his sleep, and his partner in doggy crime snuffles
peripatetically nearby. Not for the
first time do I reflect on our over abundance of animal friends.
But
I am not allowed to stay there for long, because my sprit rises up through the
ceiling joists, past the upstairs bathroom that we never use, and out into the
Greenhills night. And it is if I have
x-Ray vision—no, not exactly x-Ray, for I couldn’t see through or into things—but
I can sense thousands of spirits like mine, hundreds of thousands, really, stripped
of the categories we use to discriminate, to feel superior to one another,
categories of race and gender and religious affiliation . . . of education
level and socioeconomic class . . . of wealth and social location . . . I sense
the hundreds of thousands of spirits stripped of these superficial differences
and their essential God-breathed humanity is laid bare, there for my wandering soul
to see.
And
as I rise, I am buffeted about by playful spirits of the air, the invisible
sprites that inhabit God’s airy creation.
I can almost see their shining eyes and flashing teeth as they blow my
spirit to and fro, and I ask them: what right do you have to blow me around?
As if in response, an especially strong gust carries me almost to
Middletown, and I hear a collective Sprite-voice “Oh, mortal . . . that’s a good one . . . do you not know, have you
not heard? We are all streams of the breath
of God, which bears the voice that spoke the world into being. . . as a
minister of the Lord, you of all people should know that . . .” and I hear
their tinkling laughter, though it is not in derision but pure, wondrous
delight.
Finally,
the buffeting slows, my jitterbugging almost stops—just as I had gotten used to
it—and behold! all of Cincinnati laid
out before me, in starlight’s glow . . . The Great American Tower, lording it
over the Ohio, and it's older brother Carew, brooding in its shadow, dreaming
of past glory. Eden Park, jewel of Mt
Adams, museum nestled in it’s leafy side, just downhill from the priciest real
estate in town. And across I-71 another
hill—one of seven, or so I’m told—and on it, a University, a beacon of
knowledge, but at this hour, the playground of predators and lurkers, and co-eds
caught out too late, scuttling from light to light like inconstant moths.
And
now I begin to see tiny fire-fly flashes of pistols and shotguns and AR-57s,
all around the seven blessed hills, not just on the hill with students—what’re you gonna do?—but there
is violence everywhere, brutality everywhere: cheated-on spouses and
battered wives. Spurned lovers and abused children. Armed robbery and drug-deals gone bad. And I am suddenly sure that these sparks,
these violent eruptions are on the increase,
even as society becomes theoretically more civil. Children wielding BB guns confronted by
jittery police; all-night shop-owners, blowing looters away; and the occasional
suburban homeowner, tired of falling increasingly behind, tired of scraping
just to put food on his children’s table.
And
my spirit cringes in revulsion, it recoils in horror, and cries out “how long, O Lord, how long?” But it hears nothing except the faint
snickers of the sprites of the air, now grown menacing and cold. And my spirit cries out again: “where are the
churches? Where are the houses of
worship, the centers of love and of light, devoted to the King of
Creation?” And, as if my human breath had brought them into existence,
holy sites around the city began to glow with lambent, golden light. I see Christ Church Cathedral, Emmanuel
Lutheran and St. Peter in Chains.
Methodist Churches, Presbyterian Churches and all manner of Baptists . . . There are smudges of light all over the
city, each of which should have given hope.
Once
again I appeal to God: “Then why, Lord, why?
When communities of Christ dapple the landscape, why does violence still
blanket the city? Why do shots ring out
with metronomic regularity, why are children dying, why are mothers widowed when
there are so many churches in town?”
And
my windy guides nudge and buffet my spirit down, down, but this time it’s not
gentle or playful or coy, but rough . . . insistent . . . demanding, and I
hurtle through the roof of a church and into the pews, and suddenly I know what’s going on, I recognize the action, it’s a Presbytery
meeting, a regional meeting of churches, and they’re listening to the report of
a sub-committee convened to close down a small, African-American church . . .
The participants are ghostly, and I know they cannot see me, but the little church
is black and the commission is white . . . And suddenly there is a disorienting
shift, and it’s another Presbytery meeting, and another sub-committee reporting,
this time about a church wanting to leave the denomination . . . they don’t
agree with decisions made at the highest levels of the church . . . and as my
spirit eavesdrops, I hear voices raised in anger, names called, each side
blaming the other for our denomination’s decline . . .
And
I say to my guardian sprites “Enough of this!
I can see what you are telling me . . . We are more interested in arguing
and fighting than serving the city . . . more interested in saving money than
supporting small, struggling churches where they might do some good . . . I get
it . . . but . . . How can we turn it around?
What can we do to make it work? Where
is the hope we all need?”
One
more time my spirit rises from this earth, and my guides send it scooting toward
the rising sun . . . faster and faster it flies . . . Pennsylvania, New York, the
Atlantic coast, faster and faster, and now I see the coast of Britain, and a
split-second later, the Norman coast . . . and as we hurtle along, a hymn
comes, unbidden into my mind: “People
look east, the time is near” and suddenly, I know where we are going, I know
where the Spirits of the Air are taking me, and sure enough we descend like a
feather toward a teeming city, white walls gleaming in the sun, and I am
afraid—Bethlehem is a dangerous town in this day and age—but as my spirit
descends, the houses melt away, the traffic and the noise, and even the
bright-white daylight fades, and it is dark and cold, and I am outside a
ramshackle building that smells like manure.
The stars burn brightly and I wrap my arms around myself; my breath billows
out in puffs of steam.
A
donkey brays in the distance; I look up and see figures approaching, and though
I cannot see who they are, I know their identity nevertheless, and I shake with
excitement at who I am about to meet, but something happens, something even
stranger than being in Bethlehem at the dawn of our faith . . . Suddenly, the
modern city is back, he cars are back, and my spirit scrambles in terror to get
out of the way, but they pass right through me . . . And a wave of sadness
washes over me, as I think if what I have lost, the chance to meet the parents
of the Christ, but I look up and they are still
there, a little closer now, and once again I hear the donkey’s call . . .
Suddenly,
I’m no longer in Bethlehem, past or
present, but on the Greenhills green, standing in front of the Creamy
Whip. I look to the right, and there’s
Winton Road, dark and silent in the pre-dawn gloom, and across from it the
church, waiting for the coming of the Son of God. And once again, from across the green I hear
a donkey’s voice . . .
Now
I am back in our room, first light peaking through the window, Bob the dog
twitching and whining, Pam’s steady breathing by my side. And one last sibilant whisper fills my head .
. . “Now you know, O Mortal, what is good . . . The hope of the world comes on
donkey’s hooves in four short weeks . . . Just as he came 2000 years ago, just
as he will come again . . .” And as I
lay there waiting for the dawn of Advent’s first day, all I can think of, over
and over, is “Come, Lord Jesus, Come!”
Amen.
.
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