Recently I read Saint Francis's description of perfect joy which boils down to our being kicked around, spat upon, shunned, cursed and reviled...and, with the love of Christ in our heart, blessing the evil doer.
That must have been the basis of my dream (nightmare?) last night: Here's me, trudging across the Sahara, all alone. Out of nowhere, here's a band of really ugly, dirty, evil-looking terrorists encircling me. The leader grabs me by the neck, saying he is going to behead me.
I reply, "Thank you, you are paving my way to heaven...the only surer way is if you do not behead me, but rape me with rattlesnakes, beat me with barbed wire, shove hot pokers down my throat."
He turns to his men and says,"Set her free."
And they disappear...with which I knew I had failed.
I had failed for I had said all of that not with the love of Christ in my heart, but with the goal of getting me into Heaven...not out of love but out of fear...to get me into my reasoning mind's safe place.
There. The nightmare turned into a God-dream by the realization that no matter the fearsome apparition before our very eyes, it is love, not of the apparition but of God, that will set us free.
Thank you.
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