Silly Dream?

There has to be rice somewhere in this house, Or barley! We have one large bag of nuts, some “Craisins,” and three frozen half-filled water bottles. “Pack ‘em! Just pack everything!” My hands were shaking as I was trying to make myself think straight. The perishables, we’ll just have to eat right away; and whatever else we can find, that we can keep for later, we will keep for later. We could be in Wisconsin in just a few hours, or maybe head up north; but without any supplies, we are in for hard times. We had no time to plan with friends and family. We were just barely able to make the time for Mike to go to the store to get what he could; but my specific request was rice and barley. We need rice and barley! We don’t even have the time now to think about water. I mean, I had plenty of time one year ago. I had plenty of time even six months ago, to plan for this trip. It was a trip I had suspected was coming, but only suspected it cyclically (or cynically,) with global changes, an economic scare or a toppling foreign power. I always wondered how this day would go down, and seriously, I never thought it would look like this. Just, what, six hours ago?

Six hours ago, Mike and I were at Lake Calhoun when the call came. I was sitting in the grass watching Mike as he skipped stones over the surface of the water, when I heard my name. Mike heard the same or something similar, not my name, but his, as he and I both looked in the same direction. If we were facing south, we would have been looking southeast, but I don’t know what direction we were facing. I only think in terms of south/southeast because that is the direction I point my telescope to see the planets as they come up over the horizon. The call was coming from THAT direction. Other people were looking as bewildered as I felt, as they packed their picnic things, or the things they brought to the park. Then we all started walking, all of us; all of those who had initially acknowledged the otherwise silent voice coming from the southeast direction, if indeed we were facing south. There was no pause for discussion, no quarreling couples who had to cut their afternoon short. There was only obedience. I can’t say that any of us were surprised, I certainly wasn’t… surprised? More, bewildered. This isn’t exactly how I thought it would happen. I thought I’d have more time to prepare, had certainly hoped I wouldn’t be walking on foot. The transportation plans I had assumed was to be airborne, taken up into the clouds in the “twinkling of an eye”. We walked along in silence, collecting more people as we walked, like a giant snowball forming spontaneously. We walked through the streets and more were being added to our number. No one had any questions for the person walking next to them, as knowledge had been deposited into each and every one of us. So, we walked. There was an audible volume to the mass minus the words, like an army, it was the sound of determination. I looked through the crowd for any familiar face, but other than that of my husbands’ I saw no one I knew. No idea what united us; except that we were walking together right now, going to the same place. Not knowing the destination, but without a doubt, knowing the direction. We walked through uptown, merging only with other travelers as they emerged from the neighborhoods. The neighbors winced when they passed the shade of the trees lining their residential streets and they stepped onto the city street where the sun was bearing down. This happened at most intersections, collecting a few more bewildered people as we walked. The largest group we encountered was a group of similar size when we entered downtown. The merge was not awkward. Everyone made room for the others, and without a missed step, we walked. However, it wasn’t until we cleared the skyscrapers that the final destination was made clear.

The Metrodome was the solitary building on a huge plot of land. Groups of people were filing in to the dome, and more people were coming from around the back, as if they had come from the neighborhoods on the Southside. I started to see some familiar faces, faces of my friends from church, coming in small groups of their own, small silent troops. As we all made our way down to the field, the silence broke as thousands of people began to chat with one another, surprised to see one another. I overheard a thousand conversations all talking about their similar invitation to come. Each called by name. A thousand conversations about what they were doing when the call came. As the last people trickled in and found a place to stand, silence moved over the crowd like a wave. The people moved to make way for the last man to step onto the Astroturf. Every eye was on this man who commanded all authority, who had the power to silence the crowd with his presence. This man with so much power stepped toward one stranger. She was a stranger to me, obviously not to Him. He whispered something into her ear, and she stepped away. The next stranger was spoken to and stepped away, and another. This continued for quite some time as each person was spoken to in private. This man was Jesus. What He had to say to each person made sense to them, but I was still waiting to hear what that was. Jesus walked up to Mike, leaned into his ear and said his piece. I struggled to hear the words, but it was only ever intended for Mike. I heard nothing, not even the slightest lisp that might come from an “s” sound. When Mike heard the message he walked away. He never acknowledged me, never told me where he was going; he just quietly and peacefully walked away. I was stunned, but I had no time to be indignant. Jesus put his hands on my shoulders, leaned into my ear and said “I will come back to you”. What?! Before I could ask Him what he meant, he was whispering in someone else’s ear. What was THAT?! I got back into the waiting crowd and in the most “Christian” way, I bullied my way to the front. Jesus smiled at my persistence but just shook his head “no”. Dejected, I walked away to an area where the crowd had thinned, but it was an area that gave me a better perspective of what was happening. I saw one group of people gathered at the far end of the field and I remembered seeing the face of the first stranger that Jesus had spoken to. There she was. Jesus had spoken to her, yet she was so sad. She wore a lifetime of sorrow in her eyes. There were no tears and no more bewilderment; just knowledge or perhaps more appropriately, acknowledgment.

I scanned that crowd for Mike, but could not find him. That is when I noticed the other group, in the stands. Waiting for their friends and family; or just catching up with friends they hadn’t seen in awhile. There was Mike, talking to some friends from seminary. He was smiling and chatting about Greek, I presumed. I looked again at the disparity between the two groups and realized this was the judgment, the separating of the goats and the sheep. If this was the judgment, than nothing is like I thought it would be; and I have been given some time to make sure I am right with God. I did not fear, I just prayed an honest prayer. Jesus returned to me, leaned into my ear and said “you’re in.” I made my way to the stands but I stopped before joining Mike. I turned to the crowd that I had noticed previously at the far end of the field and was filled with sadness. It just didn’t seem like anyone had enough time to get it “right”. Obviously some had, the group I was going to join had gotten it “right”? I looked to the group milling around in the stands, laughing and talking; and I wondered if they knew the significance of this moment. I wondered if they knew what was going on. As I looked to the field one last time I thought, “There, but for the grace of God go I”. What more could I say or think? I couldn’t bear to even imagine still being on the field waiting for judgment or worse still, finding my place with the people at the far end. I spotted Mike in the stands and ran up the stairs to join him. And, just as I had expected he was talking about Greek. I tried to call people’s attention to the importance of this moment, maybe have a time of reflection for those who did not make it; but people were gathering up their things and saying their goodbyes and filing out of the seating area. Mike and I had joined a few others on the stairs as we neared the concessions area and emptied into the large concrete hallway.

Instead of the dull gray coolness of concrete, our eyes were met with an explosion of color: deep reds, vibrant oranges, and my favorite color, the one that makes me happiest, kryptonite green. Really, all the colors were represented, but this was not heaven; it was a marketplace represented by every country, as far as I could tell. Ethnic wares, trinkets, pottery, jewelry and carpets were being sold from all over the world. Vendors were calling out to the crowds, but not us. The crowds they were calling out to were invisible crowds. Or, maybe WE were the invisible crowds? We would walk past a seller who looked through us, to bargain with someone at a distance. It felt so other-worldly. I was present, but didn’t belong. I stopped along the way to look at a simple pretty silver ring, and I thought about all the simple pretty silver rings I could never have again. I mourned the loss of this world with a sigh as I looked up from the display case. We were still physically HERE though, but… irrelevant. None of this was making sense. Shouldn’t we be gone by now, shouldn’t we be in heaven. If this isn’t heaven, then nothing is going according to plan and everything we thought we knew was wrong. I just couldn’t get this out of my head. I knew exactly what to do before. So, what do we do now? Do we run? Turn ourselves in? Go to work tomorrow as if nothing happened? I stepped to the edge of the hall to take it all in. This was no longer a place for us. The economic system we had seamlessly woven ourselves into and indebted ourselves to no longer belonged to us.

Then I saw something I hadn’t seen before. The man who sells the pretty silver rings leaned over his display case to rub my fingerprints from the glass; as he did, I saw something rise and hover behind him. He breathed on the glass and used the cuff of his shirt to polish; unaware of the thing behind him. What can I call this thing, besides “this thing”? This thing didn’t propel itself, it adhered itself to him. It didn’t move, it consumed. It didn’t make a noise, it created a vacuum. It had no agenda only malicious intent. Its form is really quite insignificant, so insignificant that I had never noticed it before. It was gun-metal gray, a sphere with 4 or 5 tentacles. What was jarring was not, as I said, its appearance but it its intension. This was no accident. I watched the man to see if he might respond to it, or be bothered by it; but instead he smiled at his reflection in the glass, checked his teeth and resumed his sales pitch. He waved his arms in the air, as if he were casting spells or taking flight, beckoning anyone, if they dare, to resist his pitch. I scanned the faces of others in the area to see if they had noticed this thing as well; but it was as if my eyes had been opened.

As I looked through the crowd I began seeing these things everywhere, in all the places I had not seen them before. Always adhering to someone’s side, or hovering over their shoulder. My mouth tasted sour and my saliva was warm, I felt sick to my stomach as I thought “I am not prepared for this”. I turned my back to the crowd, preferring instead to stare at a concrete wall so I could think. Maybe if I don’t see those things, maybe they won’t see me? I bowed my head and faced the wall, Think! Think! I implored myself. That was when I realized we had already received everything we needed for whatever lie ahead. We have eyes to see what we had not seen before. I don't know what will happen now, but I do know that we have all that we need. With a new confidence, I opened my eyes to see the city stretched out as far as I could see. Millions of spheres, one on every pedestrian, large spheres over buildings; Minneapolis had been infested. One short prayer of dread and realization, “Oh, God” as I took Mike’s hand and looked him in the eyes, “We need to run!”