in a Lincoln Town Car
There is desperation and anxiety in my dreams, including waking just now from being a Navy commander in a room full of four star admirals, all of whom, each of whom, is demanding something different of me; each of whom, all of whom, I'm frantically trying to please and it isn't working.
Waking up greatly relieved, Whew, it was only a dream, glancing at the clock and sinking back to sleep into the same damned dream. Finally rising at quarter to three to start my day. Doing what? Writing my next sermon, for chrissakes, as I wonder about that frantic Navy commander and this retiring Episcopal priest.
WTFO, nomesane?
What to do? What DO I do, what CAN I do besides write and preach sermons? That's my Wilderness Question: who and what am I? I'm getting rid of my black shirts and their cute little plastic white collars, my liturgical vestments, leaving behind all my stoles except a couple that have sentimental value; and going as far out into the desert as I can. To just Be and Evolve into whatever it is that God has in mind for me after this.
Knock knock: anybody there?
Not anymore, I've given it up, but I was always a big car person. In my 88&c years I've owned some seventy-five cars, there's a list of them around here somewhere. Once, USAA rang and asked me, "Commander Weller, why do you have seven cars?"
Sometimes my car obsession played into my visualization of a Bible story. At Genesis 12, God calls Abram, who obediently sets out: in my imagination he and Sarai head out into the sunset in Abram's dark green BMW 2002 coupe, stick shift, with a chicken coop strapped on the car's roof, and the sunroof closed against the chickens for obvious reasons. Obviously, there were no air conditioned cars in Abram's day, so the ride into the desert is not all that comfortable.
Mark (1:12) says the Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert: you have it your way, I've always visualized that the Spirit drove Jesus out there in a Lincoln Town Car. What? They don't even make Lincoln Town Cars any more. Well, they did way back then, so my story is still good.
What will the Spirit drive me in? Nothing, I'm walking - - down six flights of stairs of nineteen steps each, out the door into the garden, and out the gate into the city park. Oaks by the Bay. Maybe I'll find My Laughing Place again: everybody's got a laughing place to go ho ho, and I'll find mine I know ho ho. In another Time of Life, MLP was where I took refuge when a loved one died, to live into the shock of life without them. I'll not name them all, because it's none of your business; but yes, Bill, Norman, others. MLP. Maybe my Forty Days will open a new MLP to me. Maybe a park bench by the Bay, maybe a swing facing the Bay. Maybe not.
What'll I do there? Maybe not even think. It's where meditation starts - - in the mind's desert.
Mind, I don't need you coming up with ideas and suggestions, it's not your desert, it's just me, it'll be just me, trying not to think while waiting to Become. Maybe I'll take a Sabbath every seventh day, I'll see. Again, as said earlier, if I do a Seventh Day, it'll stretch the Forty Days out on the calendar, and I'm thinking to like that idea. At any rate, after 19780201 I was no longer That; after 20240519 I mean to be no longer This, and it's bringing on those damned dreams.
Remember, your Part in all this is not to come up with answers, yours is to Listen, which is a most important Part. As for me, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
RSF&PTL
T88&c
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