One Day, In Utter Poverty, Came This Vision
September 30, 2009 by rtwsenior · Leave a Comment
In 1991, I was very poor but was working in a field that I completely loved: planning and leading groups of Westerners to the Soviet Union for homestays to meet the Russian and Ukrainian people. There was no money in it, but I adored everything about the life I led. When I was spending multiple weeks within the USSR, traveling about on trains, having great adventures with small groups of dear and spiritual friends, and making more deep friendships wherever we went, money was not the criteria for a happy life.
I had no income then and would leave the country for weeks at a time to lead these Citizen Diplomacy tours. I knew that I was doing God’s Will and that the friendships forged between former Soviets and Americans would help to heal our divisions and bring about world peace. That was worth all of the income and security in the world.
Exactly eighteen years ago this month, I had this Vision and recorded it in my journal on October 23, 1991:
“I had a Vision, a glimpse of reality, last night… a very powerful image. After I went to bed, I did suffer butterflies reacting to the tangible reality that I soon won’t be able to write a check, that my credit card will shut down when I don’t make the payments. I have no foreseeable income, and I’m going away for a month to let it all crash.
I said lots of private prayers about teaching me reliance on God, alone. Sometime in the night, I had this glimpse: It was of a knight mounted on his horse in full regalia, moving smoothly through the forest. The horse was finely outfitted, as if for a tournament, with silver and heavy brocade trappings. The forest was filled with mist and grey, bare trees. The ground was covered with wet leaves. The knight and the horse made no noise and all noise. The sound and power which accompanied this warrior was immense, like a freight train locomotive, from a distance of ten inches. And yet, there was a hushed silence.
It had an endless dimension, as if he were a whole army of knights contained in one form. In spite of the masculine image, I knew that he was ME, riding forth. I wasn’t in battle yet, but I was approaching the field, calmly and alone…and yet, accompanied with, surrounded by, made up of, something enormous. I felt as if the Hosts of Heaven, 10,000 Troops, were in my one body. The movement was even and steady, neither slow nor fast. The horse walked, but did not deliberately pick its way over the soft leaves. It proceeded forward with this impact of power all around it.
I interpreted this to mean that I was on my way to the challenge but that I had not reached the open field when the time would come to ride forth swiftly. However, I could see that I was approaching it with all deliberation, and that I had the strength to do justice to the day.”
I managed to continue doing that work for another three years, in one form or another; dirt poor the whole time, but happy. I’ve never forgotten that Vision of looking at myself moving on horseback through the forest, and once, I came upon an illustration in a magazine of that very scene, as if to remind me of that promise.
What is completely forgotten are the money problems of the time. They really weren’t “problems,” though they included a bankruptcy almost ten years later. I don’t remember those little details.
But, I do recall The Vision, as if it were yesterday. I understand it much better now, almost twenty years later. I have ridden, flat out, but serenely, across those fields. Maybe, I’m approaching more up ahead somewhere. Wouldn’t that be fine?
Jigsaw Puzzle Man
September 26, 2009 by rtwsenior · Leave a Comment
Surely inspired by the fiction reading I’m doing now, written by my high school friend, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall (see the previous blog posting), I dug through an old trunk to find my few attempts at fiction. Here’s a sketch I wrote many years ago.It was loosely inspired by the Persian poet, Rumi.
Jigsaw Puzzle Man
His name was Jigsaw and he lived alone. He had become a puzzle to himself some time ago when he had, almost accidentally, discovered that he was more than just a man, made up of skin and bones. One day, taking inventory, he found his soul and then it became necessary to rearrange the other pieces to get them in their proper order. He put the soul on top, balanced precariously on his head. But it kept falling off whenever his feet shot out from under him in a headlong run after something that another part of his body needed. After that, he slung it around his neck, but it felt so like an albatross, he took it off. Carrying it in his hands was clumsy and it somehow seemed undignified to wear it on his feet.
So there he stood, in a perfect quandry, awkwardly holding it like a crying infant in his arms, for it was hungry and needed constant feeding. Funny. Before he noticed it, he never fed it and it slept soundly in the puzzle box, never causing any problems. Now, however, it was growing at an alarming rate and always at him for more attention; nagging him when he was having harmless fun, moving him in some unknown direction.
With distinct and certain pleasure though, he loved that soul, for it was something endless and unknown, a new dimension, a portal to another world, perhaps. Its company was certainly stimulating and in their frequent conversations, he began to suspect that it had the greater intelligence.
For the moment though, he still had the power and there were things he simply had to do. Sometimes these things caused battles with this second self, great wrestling matches somewhere deep within. And even when he won the bout and went ahead with what he wanted, the victory tasted sour in his mouth and the tarnished prize was often tossed away.
He checked himself against the picture on the box. He looked alright. The arms and legs and eyes and ears were all accounted for. And yet, he knew that there was something missing. Some unknown part was gone, had never been there and yet existed somewhere. Only the empty hole had been issued to him, a jigsaw gap with random sides. A keyhole that was as uniquely his as his own fingerprint. An incompleteness that caused him restless stirring in his sleep and made his soul unsatisfied. It was as if this missing part was the cork for the bottle of his body. Uncorked, the effervescence disappeared.
She had it! But who was she? And where was she? That was the thought that mobilized his moments. That was the quest that took his time away. That was the search that had him sifting in the sand.
“Who do you seek?” they said. And he would always answer, “Layli. I seek Layli, for she holds the secret to myself.” And they would always leave, shaking their heads in sadness to see him sitting in the dust, alone and ever-hopeful.
Above him loomed the mountain, his precious mountain. And there, the path that he had carved so many times before. It took him to his universe, now all but forgotten in his search. He knew it well. It called to him to come create another world, and then another, and then another, still. It was his work and he was well-equipped for it, except for finding Layli.
Then, through his longing he perceived a newly-sounding sound of love among the trill, shrill songs of commerce. Uneasy, he conversed with it. Unknowing, he diversed with it. Unworried, he rehearsed with it. Unsuspecting, he dispersed with it. And yet, his heart returned to it, yearned for it and burned for it.
“Layli? Layli, is it you, at last? And where? Where do you call from? How do I even know your name? What part of me is in your hand? This is the greater puzzle. I call. You answer. Now, you call. How shall I answer?”
“Oh, Jigsaw Man, there is a ridge, well beyond the saddle block. I stand there waiting. Climb up and find me. I am calling from these heights above. Leave off those dusty trails below and enter only trials of love. For love does have trials, make no mistake. But what blessings those muscle-stretchings make. It’s worth the climb..and climb…and climb again. I’m here, where views go on forever. Where worlds are born and never die. Where love is summits without number. Don’t think me in the dust. Don’t mark me there, the product of man’s grinding footfall. Not at all! I’m in the heights above, soaring beyond your present view. And here I’ve been, calling wordlessly to you.
So, hoist your pack. The day has come. It’s time and time and then some. We have a way to go and that leads up. There’s Shangri-La up there and that’s our home. You’re late for dinner, by the way. Oh yes, I brought you this. You might want to wear it now to keep the wind from whistling through you so convincingly.
It goes like this. Hmmmmm, no… Maybe this way? I know it goes right here. It’s supposed to fit just snugly in, if I’m the one. And then it resonates, and then it hums, and then we bond…and then we like it very well. Where’s mine? Let’s see if they’re alike? Why, yes they are! Which way is up, I wonder? I never was much good at puzzles. Well, mine fits right away. Oh, here’s the difference! That spot from which you knew to look for mine has opened up the extra wedge we needed. Now yours will go in easily… in that forever hole you’ve been trying in the dust to fill. There, it’s done! Let’s see what happens now.”
“Layli! I hear the sound of music! Will wonders never cease? This cardboard hole had muffled all the sounds. I lay in broken pieces half the time, and took so long to sort myself, I never had the time to sing my song. My soul is singing! It’s my soul! It’s in there too, behind your gift. You’ve given it a home! Now I feel whole! I am whole, and so are you.
Were you wounded with this vast gap, as well? So noise moved through and not around? And now, with this new piece you brought me, I am so tightly fit; so ready for these mountains that this sound comes clear and bell-like through a crystal me. There are no sawlines now, no pieces and no parts.
And you the same! We will not break apart, like puzzles, even should we run, or leap, or sometimes fall. It’s safe to be ourselves. Our missing has been linked and it is over!”
“But, not our calling to each other, Love! That’s just begun. So, let us navigate this pathless place, and, mapless, find the way to everywhere and everyone, together.”
