It is just a little after 10 AM in Saskatoon, and once again one of these major roaring events has taken place in the skies over my city. Those of you who heard it will remember it as that fierce sound, notable both for being a fierce sound as well as unidentifiable. Now as for the identity of that peculiar sound, that was Yahweh (again). I can also explain why this happened at the particular time that it happened. But first I should give you a little background on the situation...
Imagine going a car trip, a long one. You know you will be asking yourself, ‘are we there yet?' Now imagine that the car trip lasts for over 25 years. If such a thing were to happen to you, you would be long past asking ‘are we there yet' (let's invent a catagory for such an extreme experience and call it ‘car rage').
Imagine seeing something as breath taking and beautiful as what I saw, and then being told again and again to ‘wait a little longer' (while around me the world lives in a strange, brutalizing darkness, and good people fall into hopeless despair).
Imagine dreaming of the time of glory and living in a place called hell (which is the worst that this place has to offer to a human being).
Here's a better one. Imagine that you know the phone number to the world's most powerful cop, and then imagine you are living in this place, filled with law breaking at the highest pinnacles of power and influence, bringing heartless godless policies and brutal suffering to the unlucky victims who must live in hell as a kind of sacrifice to the gods (which is the very worst thing that can happen to a human life in this place under the present Darwinian social system which seems to have all the power as the results in this place (cruel and unfair to the ones who must fill in the empty slots along the very bottom of the list of possible outcomes for a human life on this planet).
Okay now imagine phoning that cop, pestering that cop, dialing 911 over and over again for years, and, in response, getting a box of chocolates and some flowers sent to you by that cop, and then told to go sit down in the waiting room. Now keep in mind this God's waiting room. And you people thought you had to wait to see doctors. After sitting in such a room, for decades, which is truly remarkable (only Yahweh could ever get away with making someone wait in a lobby that long, and still keep any business at the end of it all).
Imagine sitting in that lobby, being pummeled constantly by cruel and wicked human experiences, and flagrant abuses of power and criminal neglect of human welfare, while you wait for a cop to do something about it. Every single time you dial that 911 number you get sent a box of chocolates and some more flowers, and a card that basically says ‘wait a little later darling'. Look, let's say that a woman's husband went away on business trip, and that would take at least 25 years. Don't you think that after about 15 years she's going really going to be angry every single time she gets sent a box of those chocolates or some more of those flowers.
Yahweh has been active lately. And I am really feeling cautious and timid about things, because deep down inside all I can ever imagine getting from Yahweh is a box of chocolates and some more of those flowers, with that all important card attached.
Now to achieve some balance here perhaps I should point out that there has probably never been a human being who complained more during a long trip, or asked the driver more times ‘are we there yet' than I did, so you can understand how the Yahweh version of that trip might sound different than the one sided description above.
Everything I said above is an inadequate description of how I feel. This winter I have been so seriously depressed that it seems to require an olympian effort to do just about anything. I have a constant chronic deep aching mourning pain stricken grief, that no box of chocolates and no card full of all the kisses and promises in the world is ever going to be able to cure. My pain has always been incurable, to the point of being intolerable.
And it certainly comes out in the form of anger, anger at Yahweh. And mistrust. When I get sent some flowers, I expect the card. At the same time when Yahweh gets active like that it rouses that same old hope in my heart, you know, the one with the absolutely crushing response (‘wait') followed by the painful endurance test of attempting to do just that. Now maybe if I had not asked so many times, and made so many of those redundant 911 calls I would not be conditioned in my response as I am now. I might be braver, perhaps even fool hardy, and figure that all this activity is not a box of chocolates but rather Yahweh is in fact on the move. Well I am so shy of putting my hand onto that same red hot burner again that I told Yahweh, ‘you go first and then I will follow behind.' And that is going to have to be the way it is.
I have a deep unhappiness that only the presence of Yahweh, the light of the world, can ever cure. I have a very rich fantasy life, which developed as a way of escaping from pain. I have the ability to imagine that I am not here anymore, but rather in another place, where I am happy, and I have developed the ability (just recently) to actually be able to live in this altered state for hours at a time. I call that state of being ‘Eden' and I think that if it is not taken to excess (as is to often the case with me) then I think it is a very valuable spiritual exercise because it reminds you of just how transient feelings are, and how different a person can feel when there is a change in their environment.
Well perhaps I should attempt to get to the point, which was the explain that fierce roaring sound at 10 AM over Saskatoon. To make a long story short this winter I was clinically depressed, as people can expect to get after sitting in a waiting room for 25 years. I am emotionally exhausted, spiritually taxed to the limits, and I have felt if not completely useless, then at best barely competent. I am so mournful I don't want anyone to see me. Well, unless Yahweh is around, as lately, and as I said in response to this I have developed the ability to go into a kind of altered state, where instead of being so miserably depressed I can actually rejoice. This wears off, though, as soon as I begin to think about that card that always (so far anyways) accompanies any box of chocolates or flowers that I have ever known.
Well being so depressed, and so mournful, I neglected to send in my papers on student loan, and got a call at 10 AM from a bill collector, which made Yahweh really mad, so that while I was talking to that bill collector, there was that bizarre fiercely angered roaring people in Saskatoon would have heard at 10 AM.
One possible interpretation. I am clinically depressed, and that angers Yahweh enough to bawl me out about it while I am trying to take a call from the inevitable bill collector. And let me tell you, when you feel as much pain as I feel and are as depressed as I am about it all, you really resent having a God bawl you out for feeling painful and depressed (if that was in fact happened)
.Look, I don't really know what it was about that phone call from that bill collector that made Yahweh so mad. I am just speculating. But that was what happened at 10 AM, if anyone was wondering and wanted to know. Make out of it what you will.
By the way if it turns out to be the case that Yahweh is roaring in other places around the world, and I just don't know about it yet, I want to say, having already lived it in a fantasy, that I would rejoice like I have never rejoiced before to hear that such things were happening (which would be a clear enough indication that what is happening to me these last couple of weeks was not just a box of chocolates with a card, but rather something very awesome, wonderful, and beautiful is finally starting to happen, bringing life and wonder and joy into the world (and believe me, I know what I am talking about here, having already seen it all myself). (If you are looking for me I will dialing 911 again - more than likely - its hard to change who you are or what you really feel from the bottom of your heart).