Forty years of silence have come to an end and I am compelled to try and speak my unspeakable encounter. Only one breath separates every one of us from this this reckoning, this eternity. Only one breath.
In a desperate state, I like Jacob wrestled with God. Only moments from death weeks prior my unanswered questions tormented me. Unfit to encounter Him, my anguish and confusion cause me to rave before Him, vacillating between an all consuming despair and desperate plea to touch Him. For Him to touch me. Anger, fear and dread combine as I challenge Him propelling me further into a tortured cry. “Are you real? Can you hear me? Do you even care?” How was I to know what was about to happen? The different names of religious Gods swirl through my head. Who is He I wonder. “I don’t know what to call you. Who are you? What is your name? If you exist show me!” The supernatural gift of knowledge followed by the fervent prayer of the unknown minister combine and prove to be the catalyst for the miraculous encounter. As my body falls limp to the floor my spirit is taken. Wide awake, wide eyed, in a public place I would return a different creature entirely and with the exception of a very few, I would remain utterly mute regarding this for forty years. I am not required to persuade, but only to speak so do with this what you will. The truth stands unchanged by opinion yet my most earnest prayer is that you will open your heart and consider my words.
I hush silent muting even my breath. I will not move or stray a hair from where I am placed. Face down on a silken ethereal tier the powder beneath me is foreign. After being lifted from the massive ocean separating earth’s sky and this paradisaical sphere I realize not a drop of water is left on me. This world I am in is more than an imagination can conjure. It is hallowed. It is sacred. A place of holiness I can not bear. My soul overwhelmed with fearful awe seems vulnerable to consumption, where I will be no more.
The purity is unendurable and I am a desecration of it. Dread fills me. There is no question as to where I am. I am on the shores of a sacred sanctuary that border the City of God. I lay paralyzed. I sense I am alone in this state of not belonging. Life bursts forth around me with jubilant song. The joy of this creation is immeasurable. It exudes vitality, elation. It is not quiet or passive. It is a place of blessed, exultant praise to the King of this Magnificent Kingdom. To His Holiness. To the Lightness of His Being. I marvel at the soft wind, and exuberant life I hear and feel as I lay motionless. I feel every sensation albeit I am spirit only. An indistinguishable sound captures me. Like a bell tone that claps a symphony of highly pitched melodic percussion. It is rapturous and takes my breath from me. I sense it too is alive as is everything in this place. Acutely more alive than on earth.
A great breeze swooshes around me from the foliage and trees. I wonder if they will sweep down and catch me in the arms of their branches. I feel great kindness and love from them. Fervent life energy accompany every descriptive of this creation and this I know from my prostrate position. I wonder if I lift my head will this living paradise be looking back upon me? The foreigner in their land. I hear sounds I have no reference for.
The color, musical sound and manner of vibrant life that encompass me are nothing compared to the indescribable Light that fills this place. It is inescapable. It fills every nuance of this hallowed sanctum. There is no hint of space the Light does not penetrate. It is immeasurably brighter than the noon day sun but does not hurt my eyes, even as I was lifted from the water upright. But for me it is unendurable. I understand it would instantly blind my human eye should my body of flesh be exposed to it. To say it is blinding does not suffice to describe its intensity.
There is no turning away. An all penetrating holiness uncovers every piece of my soul and I am exposed. The filth of my being is overt and can not be denied. It is glaring and vile. I confound at what I am experiencing and know it is the Brightness of His Being. The Holy Righteousness of His Presence. Of this there is no doubt. I am not yet before his throne or in His Holy City. I am outside the City of God on the shores of an ethereal nirvana and the Light of His Holiness is consuming me. Will I be extinguished by this Fire? It is too much for me to exist. My contamination is insufferable. My self loathing abounds more than I can express.
It is clear what I am. I am polluted and His resplendent brilliance is hallowed. Yet I am here, defiled and ready to be no more, yet still existing. Forgive me. My heart barely whispers, forgiveness as I know even this request is profane. My guilt is assured and sentences me. No retort is possible. Unyielding in my grave state of despair I had raved before him. Desperate for the answer to the greatest quest of my soul, when the breath of my life was almost snuffed. Everything I have ever done and each flaw of sin through out my existence hangs before me simultaneously. My state of knowing is expanded and layers of my life experience are captured in a split second of thought. I remember everything. My life prior is inescapable as is my current state and I overwhelm in fear. Why am I here?
This urgent cry for understanding began only weeks ago and was heightened when my life dangled in the tempest of angry ocean waves as the deep was swallowing me. Had it not been for the stir of vomit that violently erupted when I was rescued and pulled onto the sand my sleeping conscience would not have awakened. Earth would no longer be my home. Day after night after day, I wondered, tormented by my unknowing. Would I have ceased to exist, or found myself in some version of Heaven or Hell’s descriptive? Recognizing family members who’d gone before, or terrified in the infinite darkness of evil? I had no persuasion as to which but since that day, ordinary life vanished to the unknown answer.
In the pain, and anguish of my heart I had cried, begged and pleaded for God to reveal himself. I recklessly questioned his existence. I silently screamed within for Him to show Himself. If He did hear. If He did live. If He did care. In my blind pain and ignorance, He heard. He chose to answer and here I now lay before His presence outside this Holy City, debased and undone by the Brightness of His Glory.
Fully cognizant of the content of my life, the reckless words and presumption of my heart, there is not one particular act or series of such I disdain myself for. It is in fact the very fabric of my being for in my highest self, in the best part of me I violate this sacred place. His purity is immeasurable and without hint of shadow. As I again flood with unspeakable fear and self abhorrence the silent plea of my heart is mercy. I understand I do not belong and frightfully, wordlessly ache in utter terror. Then suddenly without warning, a cataclysmic change. In an instant nothing is as it was. There is an immeasurable shift and absolutely everything is unfathomably transformed at its core. At my core. An infinite being wrapped in the blinding light of brightness is permeating and saturating me in a presence that fills each and every cell , if I can call it that, of this sphere where I and all else are explicitly known and live in the same bowed posture of heart. I am about to be altered in an inconceivable way that has no language to accompany it. But now, at this later stage of my life I will try somehow to find the words to tell anyone who will listen.
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