Perfectly Logical, Clearly Insane
She drove all day and into the night as if she were trying to make some self-appointed destination before the stroke of midnight. At half past two in the morning, she was still blazing down the highway, surprising herself at her own endurance. She knew she couldn't stop. If she stopped, she would have to face the dragons that had been chasing her since leaving Oregon, and before. If she stopped, she would have to feel the anguish of leaving behind yet another version of a dream come true, and confront the truth that she knew existed in the stillness. Her anger at God scared her, and she drove on to the first light of daybreak, trying to keep from being caught by her own sanity which she knew was unreliable. She'd had many go 'rounds with God before; yelling, crying, begging, demanding, questioning -- never shutting up long enough to get clarity. At times, she'd wished God really had been some George Burns looking character up in the clouds, smoking a cigar and laughing down at her while she struggled with her life, because at least she would know what she was dealing with. At times, she wondered about the possibility that there was a capricious entity who allowed haggling. At least if something other than her own consciousness was work she could feel vindicated, and absolved of responsibility to look inside and face the dragon. She knew this line of thinking was perfectly logical, but clearly insane.
Exhaustion began to take hold around mid morning, but she couldn't stop. Stop driving, she heard her body say. Okay, but she had to stay distracted. She pulled off the highway into a small town near Rapid City, South Dakota, astonished to realize the miles she'd covered in twenty-four hours. Running from the devil can really light your fire. This made her remember a song she used to sing with a boyfriend years ago, Friend of the Devil, by The Grateful Dead, she thought. The words came back to her as though she had just sung it last week, "I lit out for Reno, I was trailed by twenty hounds, didn't get to sleep that night 'til the morning came around, set out running but I'll take my time, a friend of the devil is a friend of mine, if I get home before day light, just might get some sleep tonight." She drove until she saw a long stretch of gravel road on the backside of some farm houses that wound into a stand of fir trees that looked perfect for a run. She parked and started walking to warm up, and the road seemed to loom far back into the woods as she felt the gravel crunch under her feet, and the fresh air rush up her nostrils. It felt good to stretch. The air temperature was a bit warmer than she preferred, and as she picked up the pace into a run she reminded herself to keep it slow, but angrily didn't want to meditate or pray as she often did while she ran. It was like not being willing to take the hand of a friend for the comfort she so desperately needed, because she was more committed to the conflict than the resolution. Love what is, she reminded herself. Oh, really? Well, fuck what is. Disregarding the obvious display of rage, she kept her pace steady, and her mind on her breathing. Breathe slow, she told herself, and when the road was straight in front of her, she closed her eyes. As long as she could hear the crunch of gravel and the ground felt level, she knew she was still on the road. She played with this for a while, opening her eyes every few seconds and then quickly closing them as though someone would find out she had peeked. Soon, the forest was behind her and the road opened up into a huge grassy meadow. She saw houses up ahead, but didn't know if this road would take her near them. She didn't want to talk to anyone. She was driven out of herself by dragons that threatened to consume her in a fiery baptism that wanted to test her courage, of which at the moment she felt she had none. She wanted nothing to do with her soul, God's need of her, or the path of her life as it lay before her on this desolate stretch of open road, literally and figuratively. She wanted no reminders of angels, humans, homes, family or life on earth as it is in heaven. She wanted to be emptied, drained and relieved of the burden of her faith that held her captive to this body that seemed to betray her. Not the emptying that comes out of purification rituals, but the vacuous comfort of despair. Why hadn't it worked out in Oregon? Had she played but a cameo role in the drama of her sister's journey? Maybe Einstein posed a good question, 'Is the universe friendly?' She dismissed these questions as quickly as they appeared in her weary mind, and shooed off the others cresting over the horizon of her consciousness. Dragons. She noticed her breath and felt the ground hitting the bottoms of her feet hard as she realized she was running faster. Running from the dragons. She could feel their fiery breath at her heels. What had this all been for? She had been ripped from the brief acme of success only to be thrown into the dark, desolate dungeon of defeat. Where was she going? And why did it have to have anything to do with Julia? She felt like her fearful thoughts were strangling her and fatigue was causing her to hallucinate. She needed some spiritual touchstone to shock her back into the truth, but Jesus didn't give us a step by step instruction manual on how to cast out Satan. He said, look the other way. Get thee behind me, Satan. Out of my sight. See only God. See only God. Stay single focused upon God. We must look like hamsters on a wheel, running so hard from the devil and all the time it's on the wheel with us, because it's in our own mind. Free will was a pretty optimistic venture on God's part, she thought cynically.
Stop the wheel. Stop running. Stop being afraid. Stop being afraid of fear. Was she listening?
She didn't want to trust the still, small voice, for the answers it told were riddles she did not have the logic to decipher. They were almost upon her. Faster. Run faster. She was panting now and getting hot. Oregon. Julia. Angels. The dragon's breath was lapping at her heels and its heat threatened to overtake and consume her. Fine. Take me. Her nose got a whiff of cow manure and she could see them out of the corner of her eye, looking at her as she sprinted past them. Oh, to be a cow and have nothing more to my being than eating, crapping and following the herd. She'd never minded the scent of cow or horse manure and running through it now was a definite improvement over car exhaust. In Oregon, the smells had been pure and simple: pine trees, juniper and dirt, it had been great running there, breathing there, being there. The dragon lunged forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her ferociously. And then everything came to a halt.
"Good evening, Jesse, how are you?"
"Humbled. So, when I empower my judgement, envy and basically, my fear thoughts, I
dis-empower love?"
"Not only do you dis-empower love, but the vibrations of your negativity reverberate all around you, as you saw, effecting others. Now, let's see what happens from this side when love is empowered."
"Okay." While they flew, Jesse asked Annie, "How will I know when I have discovered my gift?"
Annie answered, "You won't wonder whether or not you have." They flew over to an area Jesse had not seen before. Thousands of people were lined up holding hands with brilliant lights shining all around them. Every few moments or so a new person would arrive and take the nearest hand, and occasionally one would drop out. They formed a semi circle and there was something going on in the belly of the curve that Jesse could not yet make out. They dipped down a bit further and watched. In a yard near the edge of a field, a little girl about six sat all by herself, gently caressing a small rabbit in her lap. Her lips moved and she was talking to it, stroking and calming it. Then she walked over to the edge of the field and set it down, still talking to it, coaxing it, Jesse thought. The rabbit hopped a few feet, then scurried into the woods. The little girl waved to it and ran back into the house. The mass of people departed.
"What happened?"
"That rabbit became separated from its group when a dog ran through the woods barking, and ended up in the little girl's yard, frozen with fear. The girl tended to it and gave it comfort and then set it free to go back to its family. She acted from love, and as a result this drew thousands of souls to her light and they gathered together to create a brilliant force field of power. Pretty amazing, isn't it?"
"All this over one little rabbit?"
"Imagine the power that collects when two people act from love together. Look." Annie pointed.
Jesse saw literally hundreds of thousands of souls collected, and the light was almost too bright to look at.
"What are they surrounding?"
"A man and a woman in love being physically intimate."
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