Sunday, January 14, 2007

Dear God,

Five years old. Sara is five years old. One day last week she screamed for her mother. Kim came running. "Look, Mommy, look!" An excited Sara cried out as she pointed to the sky. "What? What do you see?" The perplexed mother asked her daughter. "It's the pathway to heaven." Sara confided.

As Kim looked into the sky, she could see a cloud shaped like a stairway. "Can you see heaven too?" She asked her little girl. "No, heaven is a surprise!" She responded confidently.

Sara is a bright child. She is intuitive, able to see and feel things. She is one of my little friends at church. I first came to know Sara about three years ago when she was two. Her mother told me she was very wary of people. Kim is a single white mom. Sara is biracial. It hadn't been easy for either one of them. But she took to me right away.

Every Sunday we hug tightly. We put our foot into the middle of an invisible circle to see if we are both wearing the same color of shoe. She won't leave my presence until I say "Toodles!" She's invited me for sleepovers and for Christmas. (I've always had to turn her down.) When my grandchildren apear at church, she gets a look on her face clearly indicating her dismay. When I left on my renewal, she was very upset.

This is not the first time Sara has had a mystical experience. She is attuned to God, loves Jesus and is on a spiritual journey. I want to encourage this path she is on. A pathway to heaven. Sara is on a pathway to heaven; she just may not know it.

Do I see stairways into heaven? Not in a physical sense. I have a friend who has seen angels before, clouds that came together forming a heavenly being. She took a picture once and showed it to me. It looked like an angel. Last summer as I flew from Indiana to New Hampshire, the cloud formations were intriguing to me. Some were very deep, entrance-like, inviting. I felt I was in a different world among the clouds. It was the nearest thing to heaven. I'm sure Sara and I could have seen all kinds of things together.

Why do some see angels, pathways and some do not? I really don't know. I do know some people have a propensity for seeing "deeper" things, people who want a life beyond the shallow and face value. I happen to be one of these. I think life is basically a beautiful experience, yes, filled with pain and suffering at times, losses and hardships, but these can lead to something much deeper than the surface pain.

In the midst of life's uneasy experiences, a door can open leading to visions, words, sounds that emerge from the deep giving meaning to every condition. We are never left to our own resources; there is One who meets us in our shock, illness, grief, anger, loss. God comes to us. These moments are perhaps the richest in life. Do I want to become ill so that I will find God? No and yes. No, I don't want to get sick in order to discover God. Yes, I want to find God in every situation.

A pathway to heaven. I want to live every day on a pathway to heaven. I want to live in eternity's shadow, waiting to discern the Sacred, the Holy. I want to meet God every day. It doesn't make sense not to. Why long for anything else? Nothing else gives what a moment with God provides. There is no substitute. Anything else is a cheap fake.

I want You.

The psalmist says,
"as a deer pants for water,
so do I long for you..."
Longing leads us
to the miracle waters of God.
Waters alive with spirit,
waters that renew,
refresh the soul,
leaving in its wake
signs of God.
A pathway to heaven,
just one more sign
of God.

Forever yours, Andrea