Prologue

So I am actually going to post a story I've written. Yay! 'Bout time, I know. Hopefully, this will be a more common occurance but I suppose that time will tell. I hope all of you who are reading this (which may not actually be many) enjoy it. If you have any suggestions, critiques, or anything of that sort, please comment as that will be helpful for me. :) Thanks and have a good read.

Prologue

Do you know the place called Alethea? You may not recognize the name but you’ve been there. Most people have at least. It’s that place between dreaming and waking where things are too fantastic to be really real but too authentic to be a dream. Remember it now? Maybe you swam with a dolphin that recited Shakespeare’s sonnets or played on the stars like a trampoline. Maybe you heard your mother calling you home for dinner or your little brother asking you to read that story just one more time before bed. Whatever it may be, those have all been places in Alethea, only you didn’t know it. Most people don’t. But there are a few that do. Not so many now as there used to be. That’s due mostly to people not truly believing that Alethea exists any more and just attributing their experiences to a “very vivid dream.” Ever wondered why you get déjà vu sometimes? It’s because you did it in Alethea. At least, most of those types of experiences are due to having traveled through there. It’s a wonderful place. Terribly good you might say. Yes, that’s the phrase, terribly good. It might be frightening or terrible but it’s good. Not easy to explain that.

Now that I’ve jogged you memory a bit, I want to tell you a story of how Alethea was saved. Oh believe me, Alethea needs just as much saving as our world does today just . . . in different ways. This was the first of its rescues. You’ll never hear about it in any major newspaper or blog or website but you’ll hear it here. And the heroes of these stories will never be on TV talk shows or in movies or history books but they’ll remain immortal to those of Alethea. The heroes are people from our world who are given the very special privilege of coming into Alethea voluntarily. Normally, we get there involuntarily through dreams and what not. But these chosen few are given the choice to come if they so desire. Perhaps, one day, I will write of the all the times that Alethea has been saved and of her many saviors. But that will have to wait for just a bit. Anyways, I don’t know if anyone would really want to hear about them. Perhaps you will, once my story it finished. If you, dear reader, are the only one who ever becomes interested in Alethea, then my purpose will have been accomplished. Enough explanation now though. On with the story.

Our story begins in a serene valley. Can you see it? Lush, rolling hills forming a beautiful dell through which runs a clear blue stream. If you were to follow this steady stream, it would slowly grow into a rushing river, eventually ending in a courtly cascade. This cascade plunges into a deep pool, looking blue-green around the edges and inky black at its center. Just past this pool is a grove of wispy aspen trees, swaying at the slightest playful breeze. The leaves are a mixture of emerald, ruby, and gold. A light layer of fallen leaves are strewn around the bases of their respective trees and form a kind of carpet to a small stone table. Looking like a water-beaten rock, the edges of this table are worn smooth as glass. In fact, if it were not light gray and slightly speckled, you would indeed think it is truly glass.

Beside this table stands a man. His silvery blond hair falls to his waist in wisps on his black cloak like fog gliding in on a dark evening. His face is all ages and yet none. From one angle, he could be a boy just beginning manhood and from another, finishing the race of life. A face full of the gaiety of youth and the wisdom of age. Across from him stands another man. Yet he is not really a man for he is truly a centaur. Arms crossed upon his broad chest, he looks like a powerful barbarian lord from ages past. His raven hair falls to his shoulders, complementing his tawny horse hide. His tail, as black as the hair on his head, quickly swishes back and forth, revealing his frustration. Both man and centaur are staring intently at the surface of the table, the center fluid, in a sense. Images flitter across, never lasting more than a few moments. Neither of the watchers make a sound, as if a single voice would disturb the frolicking pictures. At last, the pictures stop switching and continue in a coherent progression. The man and the centaur watch the scene unfold before them. The man’s eyes grow wide. One hoof paws the ground angrily. All their attention is riveted on the scene before them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Tears fall slowly. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Something white thunders through the trees. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Something metal zings. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. An eye full of tears looks mournfully as a giant tear rolls down. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. A quiet voice says, “Save me.” Thump-thump. Thump-thump. A blur of images. And a young woman bolts upright in bed.

A Psalm

As I was looking through a writing notebook of mine, I came across a psalm I had written. I read through it and found, to my astonishment, that it echoed some of the cryings of my present heart. I know for a fact that this was written several years ago. Never will I cease to be amazed at my own frailty at coming to the same place again and again.

A Psalm

O, what a wretched man I am!

How shall I fight myself?

For my members war against me

and will not submit.

When shall I see my soul's salvation,

the Son of Man and God

the Lord of all?

My soul cries out for help,

for assistance in my time of need,

But the Lord does not deliver me.

He forces me to face my own battles.

Then I pray for strength,

for endurance while I fight.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Handing Over the Messiah

One of the books that I'm having to read for one of my classes is The Wounded Healer by Henri J.M. Nouwen. In it, he talks about the ways in which a minister is to serve those around him while accepting his own frailties and woundedness. It is very good and I recommend it but what I especially liked was an illustrative story he told. It really made me think about how many times I have ignored actually interacting with people and getting to know them. I hope it impacts you as well.

One day a young fugitive, trying to hide himself from the enemy, entered a small village. The people were kind to him and offered him a place to stay. But when the soldiers who sought the fugitive asked where he was hiding, everyone became very fearful. The soldiers threatened to burn the village and kill everyone in it unless the young man was handed over to them before dawn. The people went to the minister and asked him what to do.

The minister, torn between handing over the man to the enemy and having his people killed, withdrew to his room and read his Bible, hoping to find an answer before dawn. After many hours, in the early morning his eyes fell on these words: "It is better that one man dies than that the whole people be lost."

Then the minister closed the Bible, called the soldiers and told them where the fugitive was hidden. And after the soldiers led the young man away to be killed, there was a feast in the village because the minister had saved the lives of the people.

But the minister did not celebrate. Overcome with deep sadness, he remained in his room. That night an angel came to him, and asked, "What have you done?" He said: "I handed over the fugitive to the enemy." Then the angel said: "But don't you know that you have handed over the Messiah?" "How could I know?" the minister replied anxiously. And the angel said: "If, instead of reading your Bible, you had visited this young man just once and looked into his eyes, you would have known."

From Page to Stage

In one of our classes, we had an interesting exercise. We were split into groups of 3-6 based on various activities from high school. There were several athlete groups, band group, choir group, nerd group, arts group, and drama group. Naturally, I was in the drama group. For this particular class, we were given four of the seven "I Am" statements given by Jesus in the Gospel of John as well as a vocabulary word for that class and told to discuss the properties of the analogy and then apply it to our various interests. At first, my group was very confused and we did not understand what we were supposed to do at all. Then, as each group shared their findings, we learned that we were to put the various ideas of the statements into the terms of our interest. Here, I would like to share my drama group's finding and hope that perhaps it brings some insight to you as well. I only have three of the four "I Am" statements because we did not fully understand for the first of the four.

I am the light of the world. ~John 8:12

Lighting is an integral part of drama. Lighting is what sets the mood for a scene. Depending on the brightness and color, the feeling of a scene can change from cheery to frightening. In the same way, how much time we spend with Jesus will determine our mood. Also, lighting determines direction of focus because where the spotlight centers is where the important action takes place. Similarly, Jesus will highlight those places in our life where there ought to be action. Finally, backstage, the smallest bit of light will guide those working to organize and prepare thing for the show and keep them from either running into each other or misplacing something so that it becomes a hindrance to others. Likewise, even the smallest bit of Jesus will illuminate our lives so that we may put things in order and avoid collision with others.

I am the door. ~John 10:7, 9

The stage door allows one to go from backstage to on-stage. Behind the door, you are you of the present time and place yet once you go through that door, you become a whole new person, totally different from who you truly are. When we accept Jesus and go through Him to new life, we become a new person. The backstage door allows one to see the organized chaos that goes in to making the show and gives one a totally new perspective in to what is really going on with the show. Equally, Jesus as our door allows us to see the world in a new way, being now able to see the spiritual dimension that is behind our present world. The lobby door can only be entered at a price (whatever was paid for the ticket) but once you are in, you are given excitement and adventure. So, we can only enter through Jesus by His sacrifice to enter into the incredible life that God has for us. In a somewhat different vein, the stage belongs to the director and the actor may only enter the stage through the door that the director has specified. God the Father, director of all that is, has specified that His son Jesus is the only way to enter into relationship with Him (Luke 9:35, John 14:6)

I am the true vine. ~John 15:1

All shows have times of cutting and refining. Callbacks are the time for cutting away those who will not help develop the show to its fullest potential. In the same way, God will cut away those parts in our lives that do not help to develop us more to be everything that He would desire us to be. Once you've made it past the callbacks (meaning you've got a role), you spend time deepening your understanding of the character and refining your acting abilities so as to portray the character believably. In terms of the true vine, those are found to be fruitful will be pruned, cutting away the bad parts so as to make it the new fruit even better than the last.

Redemption

This one is a bit more extrapolated so please bear with me.

After working so hard for so many weeks on getting ready for the show, you finally perform. But, eventually, you need to be brought back to the reality of you, the original person outside of the character. When you go out to meet your family and friends who have come to see you, they congratulate you, not your character, on how well you did and how much they enjoyed the show. If you do not return to yourself and disentangle from the character, you can become lost within that character. Such has been the fate of some method actors who went too deep. With redemption, God is bringing people back to who they were truly meant to be, those who are in constant communion with Him. We are to be no longer lost within the mesh of sin in which we were born. Rather "the LORD redeems the souls of his servants: and none of them will be desolate" (Psalm 34:22). We will once again be whole and free with Him.

Thus was the extent of our exercise. It was very revealing for me. And I wanted to share it with all of you.

Pruning, George MacDonald, and Me

Pruning is a rather ugly business, in my opinion. Everything at the beginning looks so beautiful and lovely. Granted there may be something out of place or that looks deformed but overall, it's not so bad. Then you go and prune the bush. Then it's nothing but ugly branches shooting off to nowhere with nothing but a ragged end and dripping sap. There is nothing pretty about it . . . at the time. The benefits of pruning can only come after time has elapsed, when it's time for the fruit or blossoms to form. Once this happens, the pruning proves to be of extreme importance. Without it, there would be an unnecessary use of nutrients by branches that would no longer flower or produce fruit. Thus they were cut away so that those parts that were producing as they should could get more of what they needed so as to do what they did better.

My soul must unawares have sunk awry.

Some care, poor eagerness, ambition of work,

Some old offense that unforgiving did lurk,

Or some self-gratulation, soft and sly -

Something not thy sweet will, not the good part,

While the home-guard looked out, stirred up the old murk,

And so I gloomed away from thee, my Heart.

~George MacDonald, "February 14" from Diary of an Old Soul

If I should slow diverge, and listless stray

Into some thought, feeling, or dream unright,

O Watcher, my backsliding soul affray;

Let me not perish of the ghastly blight.

Be thou, O Life eternal, in me light;

Then merest approach of selfish or impure

Shall start me up alive, awake, secure.

~George MacDonald, "February 16" from Diary of an Old Soul

These two poems somewhat describe my situation in life at the moment, along with the pruning thing. God has been showing me over the past several weeks a weakness that I had never acknowledged before that has kept me from all that He has for me. Somehow, by some small slip, I have allowed myself to wander from my original purpose and design. However, even though I know what is my problem and how to remedy it, I find myself stalling and sinking further and further away from what what I want and ought to be.

How can I return to that place of openness and vulnerability where God desires I be? How can I loose this strangling hold upon my heart? How do I learn to trust You more?

What Are Friends Made Of?

Friends are hard to come by nowadays. I mean, at any time, it can be hard to make a friend but with all the social networking, it can be harder to tell who is really a friend and who isn't. Because of this, you can get to know people on a surface level and think you know them well without ever getting to anything deeper than the current clothes trends or popular music. This is not to say that you can't make real friends over the internet or anything like that. I am merely pointing out a tendency in these types of relationships. And these tendencies can spill over into real human relationships. You can hang out, talk, go on trips, and still know nothing about the real person. It's a complicated maze of give-and-take, revealed and not revealed.

I have a habit of becoming consumed by stories at times, especially those of a chronic nature such as a book series or tv show. Partly, it is because of my natural, and sometimes irrational, love for stories. However, I have been thinking lately that there is more to it than that. I can sit in front of a computer for hours on end without ever thinking of talking to someone or trying to hang out actual people. It's almost as if the real world doesn't matter anymore, that I am a part of the world of the story. I become so attached to the characters in the stories that I can feel with them. My heart breaks at their losses, soars with their triumphs. I know the inner workings of their minds and hearts, how they process and where they stand. They are my friends . . . as long as the pages or pixels last. When the stories end, there's a hole, an emptiness inside me where my heart for the characters has been. So I'll go and find another story that will take it's place, with a set of new characters to befriend.

This becomes a problem when I leave the realm of story and enter that of reality. People won't just tell you all about themselves right off the bat, like you can get from characters in a story. Real people expect you to give of yourself as well before they reveal things about themselves. You no longer have an easy access into people's minds and hearts. You have to work at it. You have to build trust. You have to build a relationship. They don't magically appear. They take blood, sweat, and tears. They take effort and strain. It's a process . . . that never really ends. Like a house, it takes constant vigilance to see that nothing corrupts or begins to decay. You have to be careful about things like that with people.

There is also then the place where people trust you and open up to you and you do the same, just a bit. You have the ability to make people feel at ease with you and trust that you will hold their hearts tenderly, which you will. However, your heart is never really given away at all. You will show parts that look like more than what they are so that the other people think they're seeing the deeper parts of you while you still conceal from them the iceberg of your heart. People will say that you're one of their closest or best friends. On the outside, you smile and laugh and share but inside . . . inside, everything is in chaos. How do you say that you haven't shared anything? That you've been playing a part for possibly years? Do you ever actually tell them that? Do you simply go away and let yourself drift from their life, knowing that what they think is you is not you at all? These and so many more similar thoughts swirl around your head, even as you spend time with those who call you friend.

What are friends made of then? How do you know when someone is a friend and when they're not? When I am a friend? I don't know. Sorry for the ramble.

Kansas City, MO - Day 11

I'm HOME! It feels so good. I've missed it.

But we left the hotel, all packed and ready, at 9:00 am with suitcases in one van and all the rest of us in the cars and vans we'd rented. When we got to the airport, we checked in and found out that our plane was delayed an hour so we got to wander the airport for about two hours. I wandered with Nick, Alex, Annie, and Eden and we had fun. At 11:45 we went through security and had to wait another hour before we actually boarded. Since we didn't check in till that morning, we had mid-B to C tickets so I ended up sitting between two strangers. Before take-off, I talked some with the man on my right. I found out that he was from Daytona, Florida and was flying out to LA for something. He has two kids, 12 and 15, who have wanted to go to Disneyland for a while and he may be taking them this summer. He himself has only been to Disneyland once and that 20 years ago, when Splash Mountain first opened. We also talked a little about the airline, Southwest, and their seating arrangements. Then I fell asleep for an hour and a half. When I woke up, I journaled about what was prayed over me and read a little of Beowulf. After that, I did devotions. The reading was in Hebrews and three verses seem to stick out to me and they all ended up connecting and from them, I have a feeling that I may be going to Virginia in the fall with Ignite. But I'll still need to pray about it. Then we landed and took a bus back to school. There was so much excitement as we neared the school. When we pulled into the parking lot, we could see Devan, Steven Beck, Steven Brunelle, and Megan all waiting for us and jumping up and down. We could hardly contain ourselves in the bus. Hugs exploded when we got off the bus. We were all so happy to be back and to see people we hadn't seen in ten days, though you'd think we hadn't seen them in years by our exuberance. All the rest of the day, we were bombarded with people who were happy to see us back. My heart was so happy to see my friends again and I had the silliest grin plastered across my face. Then all Ignite had dinner of pizza and soda together which was a lot fun.

I'd have to say that, overall, the trip to Kansas City was a success and so very valuable for me. I do not regret my decision at all to come to Ignite. But, for all the incredible experiences I had there, there is no place like home. I love you all. I'll be home home in close to 24 hours. Hold on a little longer.