How that changed my life, was that in creating a website to train up dream interpreters, we also started a community into which we forced a new language. How the site worked was simple. People put their dreams in, people who wanted to learn how to interpret them and had taken classes would interpret them, and their interpretations would be examined for accuracy and clarity, approved or asked to be redone. (The infamous redo.)
What we very quickly discovered was that in wanting to train up dream interpreters to take dream interpretation to anyone, anywhere there was a journey of language that needed to be taken. In our sphere and in our sociological group of non denominational, charismatic Christians we spoke a language that truly few could really understand. It was a steep learning curve and a hard one. Often I would be told I was going to hell because if I wouldn't say the name of the Christ in front of man, He wouldn't say it in front of Father.
It was never that I wouldn't say the name or speak truthful spiritual realities. It was that I wanted to learn a new way of doing so. A way that didn't close off a heart before it could even open. A way that didn't sound pompous, religious and full of it. A way that was full of light and liberty and love. We found it bit by bit as did many others.
And the journey continued.
I never thought of myself as a linguist of any sorts. Except as the years passed my journey continued forward with a hunger to develop ways to talk about spiritual realities. It became my passion. A couple years ago the journey would take a sharp turn, having me face the steepest of learning curves. Now it wasn't just language, it was culture. The questions only continued to increase.
I shouldn't be shocked by now, however I find that I continually stand in a state of awe. I feel at times that I have come to the end of a journey, with only a dead end facing me. The road seemingly comes to a stop sign, with a very large brick wall looming where the next step should be.
Not shrinking back I touch said wall wondering will it move if my finger falls upon the right brick, is there a way to scale this formidable obstacle, or is there another way.
I remember often why it is said that Carol Wimber wrote her book on the journey of her and husband and the Vineyard. I heard that as other interpretations of what happened were coming out, she knew in her heart that that wasn't the way it had occurred. They really were just people taking a step at a time. Whether that story is true or not, it has guided my heart through many an endeavor. I think to myself, "There doesn't have to be some grandiose plan. Literally just take one step then another. Touch the feeling. Risk. Go forward. Take a chance."
As a 43 year old woman I am none too ashamed to have Journey to the Past blasting forth through my stereo as I drive these days. There's something about it that had played in my head one day. That song and Once upon a December from the same Anastasia Disney Film. They both speak to my heart in a way that pours into that muscle courage, hope, endurance, and a remembrance. A remembrance to emerge and really be that which I am.
Those songs coupled with my current need to write a paper based on someone who has formed out my spiritual framework is awakening me to a whole new world. (Sorry had to throw another Disney lyric in there). I had asked my supervisor if I could take a different approach. Recognizing my deep interior need, that while there were those I had been formed out by, all I was was yearning for a new voice to under gird, challenge and equip me. Without hesitation, my supervisor spoke out St. Catherine of Siena. In exaggeration I would be inclined to say that never truer words were spoken.
I have read about her, her life, her journey. I have read what other men and women have said about her and I have fallen deeply in love. I have been convicted and challenged as I have watched a recreation of my inner woman formed and reformed. Here was this brilliant, articulate, illiterate woman who in the fourteenth century stood formidable changing life and history before the eyes of popes, cardinals and princes of the Church. She stood by her vision, her passion, her understanding with tenacity and a courage that is illuminating.
I've learned much from her. Seen places where I have shrunk back, not arising to how I am wired as a human being nor embracing the fullness of that which is within me.
At this point in our time together reading this post; we have Disney songs, a Catholic Saint, and then into the mix another conversation would render me a puddle. As form within me dissolved, forcing me to take a look at what I believe. I bumped up against a new language. I came face to face with thought and intellectual conversation that was more spiritual than I could have ever imagined. More than anything I came face to face with what I most earnestly believe. The challenge reverberating in my heart was would I take the next step. Would I open my mouth? I was touching who I intrinsically am, the things I deeply believe even though I have not seen... My eyes were wide. My heart was leaping.
What was it?
A conversation that would introduce me to the reality of a more secularized conversation of how religion affects sociological and geopolitical realities. Uhm, Mims... Have you completely gone off the deep end? YES! And it is wonderful. Take the leap with me!
As I touched the conversation with this woman that I was meeting for the first time, I could feel the intriguing nature and pull of the words being spoken and realities being shared. It wouldn't be until later that light bulb after light bulb after light bulb would begin to start filling my head with so much light that immense, unquantifiable joy began to touch all aspects of my person; body and soul.
Why?
Well.. here's the journey.
I'm often asked about my journey these days. I've learned I write in broad strokes. The details of the journey, the passage way of the steps sometimes left out. Now while each of us has our own unique step by step passageway, I don't mind hearing back from you that sometimes it helps to have the step by step. I totally get that. Believe me, I do.
I know this post is getting long. I want all of this story in one posting so no part one and part two. Pause, go do what you need to and come back if you can't keep reading..... Now, with that out of the way... Here we go.
A while back I had an experience, one of those that changes the depths of your being, I was left changed. It had to do with the reality of the Divine Nature. Call God whatever you will but as Paul spoke on Mars Hill to the the populous in Athens, he said this; "We ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man." What touching those words did to me in that moment and in moments to come transformed me.
Man will always try to form out what exactly the Divine Nature is and I do believe we get it wrong much more than we get it right, primarily because we want to get it right and be right, making others wrong and the right "us," whoever that is, strong. But what landed upon my heart and has in further conversations with said, Divine Nature, been sparked is many questions. Now I am already living in a place where christian friends don't think I am christian enough, friends who fall more on the new age spectrum still think I'm too christian, theologically liberal friends think I'm a tad too conservative but those on the conservative side would so not agree. What does all that mean? I'm open. I'm open to truth. I want to be lead into all truth. Which is a job of the Holy Spirit. It is the job of the Spirit of the Divine Nature to lead me into all truth. I can trust that. I do trust that. A morphing of language is once again occurring in my depths. A new linguistic study of how even more can I speak truth in a way that calls forth those who bare the image of the Divine Nature. Which the last time I remember reading genesis was all humanity that was formed from the dust had life and image breathed into them. What any of us do with that image is another posting and another time. Let's move forward.
Enter the sociological, geopolitical perspective. Divine Nature meets sociology. Divine Nature meets geography. Divine Nature meets politics.
My mind began to think about the story of Obed Edom in ways I never had. Obed Edom, the flood, the earth quake happening after the crucifixion. Current affairs and the Transformations series. Stories of how this Divine Nature acts upon geography, communities and politics. Now I realize you can talk about the concept of religion devoid of any spirituality. While that's true about a blanket discussion on religion, I came to a place where all these thoughts were having me sitting up, thinking, stopping, pausing.. considering language and conversation and reality.
If I create something (let's say even Stir The Water) even if I take a sabbatical from it, even if it is off the web for a few months; I am still the one who has helped to fashion and form that community. I care about her. I think about her and her development. I wonder about what how she will be in the future and what changes are necessary to move forward. Jim and I have authority over her name, her construct, her entire entity. While there is also a large community that has influence and plays a significant part, so we don't govern her alone but within the construct of a people group.
So what is this Divine Nature that removed from religion will act upon the earth, humanity? What does this Divine Nature do or not do? Then came this question and I fell to my knees and the statement Knees not Tanks entered my heart. Humanity has always looked to the proverbial Pharaoh to have impressive horses and chariots. But what about the Divine Nature who took a man named Gideon and his army, dwindled it down from over 30,000 to 300 and gave said army victory simply by having them break glass and shout. Who is THAT Divine Nature?
Or what about that Obed Edom story.
Here comes a King. (Political issue) King interacts with supernatural happening around the presence of Divine Nature and someone who mishandles the situation by trying to touch the Ark dies. King leaves ark in with a non Hebrew... This is how 2 Samuel 6:11 makes an accounting of that event.
And David was unwilling to move the ark of the LORD into the city of David with him; but David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. Thus the ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household.
As I took more and more of the conversation I had had to heart, thought about all these stories I know about both biblical and current affairs, my mind raced.
Then as I sat with Divine Nature, paused, stilled myself, touched quiet; I heard, "If my people ..." And I sat and began to cry....
...and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their ways that destroy them, each other and their relationship to me, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land ...
Just look at the news these days... WHAT LAND DOESN'T NEED HEALING? And how does it begin? Humility! A willingness to admit I've gotten somethings wrong. I want to live in more of a right manner. I want to live a manner that puts me more in union and unity with my fellow human beings and the Divine Nature. In so doing this Divine Nature will once again act upon creation and bring healing.
What I realized in that moment? Was that the confidence of St. Catherine, the confidence imbued upon me because I am fashioned and formed in the likeness of Divine Nature is granting to me the reality that I have power and confidence coursing through me. I have a voice. I have an intellect. I have ideas. I have a belief that in so believing in the reality of a Divine Nature, that it what it is not based upon humanity but just because it is, that that Divine Nature cares deeply about humanity sociologically speaking in very practical terms. That in seeking that Divine Nature, we as humanity can become more true to the image in which we were always intended to bare forth.
I realized that even if I never see such things happen around me or in my life, that I most thoroughly believe that this Divine Nature acts upon and changes things and cares deeply about geography, politics, religious expression, and sociological issues.
In our pride we want to relegate that compassion and kindness to one specific box, one specific people; yet reality screams forth from the invisible real that that Divine Nature so loves the whole world that the way that that Nature acts upon all of us can at any moment affect things and bring healing upon our lands. I'm more confident of this fact then the reality of any capacity that a peace keeping UN group or military excursion would have within its abilities. I am more confident of the capacity of stillness, quiet, rest, kindness, love (and this list could go on forever) to affect real change than I am of anything else.
If I appear to be a fool. I'll be a fool upon knees bent and a heart trying to learn true humility. I'll be a fool believing that horses and chariots, or today's tanks and weapons of war; are no match for returning to ways of living that are actually full of life, no match for the reality of what rest and sabbath can empower creation and humanity with, no match for what quietness can affect, no match for the powerful force of kindness.
I am a life. One life. Upon my life there has been much chaos. In this season I feel the Spirit of Divine Nature brooding and hovering over all that has felt chaotic. As I have not leaned upon my own understanding but in all my ways attempted to acknowledge what is right and truthful, kind and strong, I find my paths being directed in ways I would have never fathomed but am truly finding life within. I find myself stronger, more confident while embracing that those things I once was certain I knew I no longer can believe with complete absolute certainty (now hear me.. there are pillars that I believe still hold up my building of faith, I just yearn to communicate even that in a way that is open and questioning) because in embracing that uncertainty I am finding more mystery and joy. I am finding myself and some of the chaos is abating. And it is good... NO! It is very good.
So here is where I live.. Language changing day by day, boxes being crushed and put out to the curb, and me more in love with Divine Nature and the reality of that Nature to act upon my life, the life of my family, the life of my community, the life of the world.
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