I Am Fed

(Continued from No Longer Bound)

I went through another night without any incident. Again I saw the glowing blades of others who had come to the rim, glowing like the stars in the heavens above. I watched the far side of the abyss as well hoping to see into the battle on the other side, but did not. I slept some too and by morning felt hungry. I hadn’t eaten since my arrival on the edge. Though joy filled and sustained me, even took my mind away from eating, I nevertheless felt the need for sustenance. I knew I would have to find food soon.

As the morning sun broke across the way, it found me sitting on a rock with my sword tip down. I faced the rising sun in half-sleep. “Father, I am hungry,” I said softly.

Drifting on the wind, I was sure I could hear the soft song of praise in the voice of the woman whose bonds I had cut the day before. The pleasant sound was quite faint as she was somewhere to the south of me. Her melody drifted on the morning breeze which came from that direction.

“Hallelujah...Hallelujah....Hallelujah....” Her words expressed jubilance through as many musical notes as there were syllables in the word. I listened carefully. No, she sang more notes than four. She gave variation to each syllable. She was praising God with all her spirit and her song was beautiful to behold. It became part of the thoughts in my mind. It took the hunger away from me.

I stood and began to dance with the sword over my head, moving to the rhythm she established in the air.

“Hal...le...lu...jaaaah....Hal...le...lu...jaaaah,” over and over again. I swung the sword slowly and worshiped in this manner. “O God Creator Most High, you are real to me. You are real and the one whom I worship over all things. You are my sustenance. You are my food. When I am hungry I call out to you and praise your name. I praise your name even now, Lord God, for I know you will feed me. I seek you with all my heart. I look across the chasm and it’s not the place I seek. It’s you, O Lord. The place I desire because You are there, but I know also that you are coming and for that I give thanks in my spirit. I praise You and I worship You. Yes, I worship You. I give this day to You, Lord. You know better than I what I need to sustain myself. So I turn to you this morning and tell you that I am hungry. Sustain me, O Great God Almighty Who Has Made The Heavens And The Earth”

I kept my tongue from complaint. I closed my eyes and continued swinging the sword to the rhythm of her soft, ever so pleasant words of praise in the distance. I had worked myself away from the edge of the abyss onto the open plain at some small distance. The sword swam in the air above me and around me. I swung it slowly to her song until I could no longer hear it at which I laid the point of the sword down in the dust and opened my eyes. There at the very tip of my Joy was a loaf of bread and cup of water.

The bread was fresh and warm; the water, cold and very refreshing. I ate the entire loaf and drank all the water slowly, savoring each bite of the bread and sipping each taste of the clean, refreshing water. I thanked God and praised Him. I praised Him for the fact that He knew my hunger and fed me. I praised Him for the fact that I had come this far; and I praised him for His Mighty Love which I knew to be more powerful than any army of man.

###

No Longer Bound

(Continued from Not Alone)
I continued all that night swinging my Sword of Joy and praising God for the gift he’d given me and for His Greatness and the coming return of His Son. As the first faint light of dawn appeared in the morning sky, I was glad in my heart like no other time I had ever known. My heart was a song. My whole being rejoiced at the beauty and wonder of that glorious sun rising in the east. I sat for a long while in the golden rays, basking in the warmth as if it spoke to me. I fell asleep for awhile but was awakened by a soft moaning sound.

The sound was barely audible. After opening my eyes, I cocked my head and looked about to see if I could tell where it was coming from. But I could not. I rose to my feet, taking the sword up with me. I listened carefully before taking a few steps in the direction I thought it was. It was a little louder, so I walked toward a cropping of brush and rock. Still I did not find anything right away. I had to look for her. But after some earnest search I saw a woman lying prone in the sand, half covered, her clothes soiled by the earth. I ran up to see what trouble she was in and found that she was bound by long cords of vine-like rope which stretched and disappeared into the earth to the west.

She moaned again, so bound was she, I wasn’t sure she knew I was there. I could feel the heaviness of her heart. The burdens that held her bound and stuck in the earth were great. She was crying out, not for herself, but for others near to her and loved. I heard her call to the Lord, but it seemed no one was there to answer but me.

Quickly, I took hold of the biggest of the ropes that held her and cut it easily with my Sword of Joy. As quickly as it was severed, it sprang backwards into the earth as if it were made of rubber. I picked another and did the same. It too flung back away from her. Then I cut another and another and yet another. In each case, as I severed the cord it sprung away from her by some great earth-bound elasticity it contained.

Finally, she was free. Remnants that had been wrapped so tightly around her were no longer tight. She removed them from her shoulders and waist by her own hand. She looked up at me with grateful eyes. “Oh Lord, thank you,” she said weeping with joy. She spoke and prayed in a prayer tongue I could not record.

“Yes, it is the Lord who has done this,” I returned. "Praise the Living God."

“How did you cut these cords so easily? Those heavy ropes have bound me for so long. Nothing would cut them away.”

I showed her the sword, “By this. It is the Sword of Joy. If I could I would give it to you, but I cannot.”

“It's enough to be free.” She cried as she spoke.

“Yes, here,” I reached a hand under her arm to help her up. "You're alright now.”

“I’ve tried so many times to cut these ropes, but could not.”

“It is Joy that cut them,” I said. “The Joy of His Coming. Rejoice, for the Lord of Hosts will soon return.” I pointed to the chasm which was near enough for her to see as she stood for the first time in a long while. “He’s coming from across the Great Abyss. Even now darkness is being expelled in front of Him. He’s coming.”

“I know,” she answered. “I’ve known, but I had no idea I was so close.”

“You’ve come a long ways and the world no longer binds you. There are others of us along the edge. I saw them in the night. Their swords shined in the darkness like mine. It glows at night.”

“It is so beautiful, unbelievably beautiful!”

I showed her the gems in its handle. “These are the joys of the saints and martyrs. They are alive, I’m told, over there,” I pointed again, “on the other side.”

“How do we get across?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. Perhaps we just have to wait here. I’ve met others who want to cross over also, but I don’t know of one personally who has and has come back. Well, accept, yes...I know of one, a young woman who seems to have gone over and come back, but I haven’t talked to her yet, not directly about that, so I’m not sure.”

She brushed dirt and soil from her clothing and dust from her hair. “Thank you for helping me.”

“You’re quite welcome. You can go safely, I believe. I think you will soon be given a sword of your own, because I know there are many along this edge who have them. I saw them during the night.”

She parted from me, very grateful and renewed. Her countenance took on great bearing. Though she was quite small compared to me, she stood like a little giant giving thanks to the Lord on the edge of the abyss. I left her there knowing she would soon be visited as I had been. I heard her singing, “Hallelujah” over and over again as I continued my trek north. It was music to my ears and soothed my soul with assurity.
###

Positive Adaptation

(About the Allegory)
The chronology presented here in the stories related to The Awakening are allegory in the finest sense. As author, I get to understand and enjoy them on levels not likely translatable to my readers. The experiences you read about in the allegory are real to me in another realm--absolutely real. I must tell you also that they correlate directly to events unfolding in my life from day to day.

Perhaps it's just the interplay between mind and spirit. That's a tidy way of putting it. Of this I'm sure: it has taken me years to get to this point, both in the allegory and in the freedom to report what I see in it. I write from no outline. I don't pre-think and plan what I'm going to bring next. I just write, but I write with a confidence and faith that if I enter into the dream of the allegory, I will come out with substance.

I'm experiencing something marvelous and incredible from all this. I'm seeing manifestation in my waking life, my daily existance, of the discoveries I experience in the allegory.

Here's part of my notes from pondering all this, written from my private journal: January 30th "Positive Adaptation considers everything that worry dwells on, but does not dwell in the cycle of worry. Instead, positive adaptation dwells in the cycle of possibility. It is free from the chains of doubt that worry is bound by. Holding Joy in my heart and mind, swinging the imaginary sword of joy in the midst of confrontation helps me identify the spirits of doubt, worry, disillusionment and so on and drive them off. I meet the moment instead with faith that I will find the way through the problem."

The results in my life, of this kind of pondering coupled with the imagery of the allegory, are nothing less than dynamic.

Not Alone

(Continued from The Telling)

I walked all that day swinging the sword in the air and at times resting. To my amazement, my arms did not grow weary, but gained in strength as I continued north in this manner. I got to where I could make a full swing above my head and bring the sword’s tip down gently and touch the center of a select pebble lying on the ground. Joy flowed through my body in pulses and filled me up.

By nightfall I was nothing less than exuberant I was so filled with Joy in this manner. As darkness settled over the land and twilight receded in the west, stars by the millions appeared in the moonless sky. So filled with Divine Happiness was I that sleep seemed impossible. The shine from the sword lit my way. I could see with ease where to walk and was in no danger of tripping or falling over the edge. I continued sweeping the air around me with the sword. I was still on the edge of the abyss which below took the appearance of a dark lake. The fog that prevented me from seeing its great depth looked like a solid surface of water in the night view.

At the point where I stood, the abyss curved around toward the northeast like a great river that could not be crossed. I noticed at this point other faintly glowing hues of light the color of which was not unlike that of the sword I carried. These many lights sparsely distributed along the rim were glittering so that at first I thought they were stars twinkling. But as true night settled in I saw that they were swinging for closer at hand I could see the longer finger of blades being swung in the same fashion as I swung my sword in the air.

O Lord, I thought. Thank you! I see that I am not at all alone for there are many like me who have made their way to the edge of dawn. I stood in silent awe at this view counting numbers that did not matter until they were so faint in the distance both up and down the edge of the chasm that they disappeared into minute nothingness.

The peace this site brought to my heart cannot be imagined, nor can I describe it. I knew these were the blades of many believers who believed as I, who had come out of the world to find God.

###

The Telling

(Continued from Two Paths)

I held onto the sword as I strode north. I clasped it firmly in my hand, transferring it as before but less often. Either I was getting stronger or the sword was becoming lighter. Regardless, it was easier to carry so I practiced swinging it while I walked. I resolved never again to lose it to anyone.

"I will keep this sword, Lord. This gift from you is great and mighty, the protector of my faith, and I will not ever let go of it again. Lord I pray that I can keep it and hold onto it, no matter the strength or guile of those I meet."

I had no sooner said this when a bright light appeared in the sky over the chasm. I stopped and looked. The light came close and then an angel appeared and lit gently in front of me. I lowered my head in respect but did not fall to my knees. I waited for him to speak.

"You are learning, son of man. I am sent to both encourage and warn you. You will face difficulty ahead, but you must stay strong and have courage. God will make the way for you. Keep your sword in front of you and trust Him."

“How is it that the Sword was returned to me? This is the same sword I held earlier. What happened to the men who took it from me?”

"“They received their wages. Men of corruption cannot contain the joy given you. They could neither hold it nor stand it. Neither can the angels that are fallen. They cannot touch joy. They will use men to try to steal it from you. Wield it and they will flee, for joy cuts right through them, as you've seen.”

What am I to do?"

Greet all difficulty with joy. Guard your tongue. God is with you.”

The sword began to vibrate again as it had before. I looked at it. The gems embedded in the handle were pulsating unbelievably beautiful light in many colors. The sword felt warm again to my touch. A tingling flowed up my arm from it and penetrated all my body. Peace flooded over me and became me. "Thank you," I said. I felt such happiness in that moment that I cannot properly describe it. I felt more alive than I had ever felt and more certain that I could meet any foe in victory.

"Be strong in faith and have courage. Trust God and wield your joy as a weapon. Be joyful in all you do. Show joy in front of all you meet. In this way you have joined the fight and are helping us on the other side. When you are weak, when you sin, your light in the sword will grow dim and that is dangerous, as it gives them strength. In losing joy you will lose faith. Be strong in your faith and have courage. Do not sin, but walk away from sin. Bear love in your heart for others but have a discerning eye. You already have these things so use your joy as a weapon. It will protect your faith and your faith will increase. Soon you will be joined by another and many more after that. No one comes to you by accident, nor do you meet anyone by coincidence. Remain strong in your faith, wield the joy and the season of difficulty will soon pass. You will know everything to do. The victory has already been won. The fight that continues even now is to expel that which is against God. Be strong in your faith. Joy will protect it. There is no one you should fear."

As he said that, he rose from the soil so that I looked up to follow, then he turned and flew back across the abyss, disappearing as before into a point of light.

# # #

Two Paths

(Continued from My Weapon of Choice)

I played with the sword in mock combat for awhile feeling its energy and marveling over its beauty. I knew I had something powerful, but I hardly knew how to use it. After awhile I grew somewhat bored however with play and decided to walk further north.. I had no scabbard for the sword so I had to carry it by the handle, blade down, and it was just heavy enough that I had to transfer it from one hand to the other periodically as I walked.

Before long I came to a dip in the terrain that slopped downward away from the rim of the abyss. I reasoned it must be the upper reaches of a gully. Various bushes and brush were around this slight basin and I saw that a path, faintly warn, let down along one side. I hadn’t been following any kind of trail since I neared the edge of the abyss, so this was peculiar in a way. I figured it must be a path that had led some few unknown to me from the world to this same place where I had come.

With the Sword of Joy in my hand, I thought I must have purpose for having been honored in the gift of it. I thought of no better reason to have it then to take it back into the world to use on behalf of those close to me and for whom I had prayed earlier. I knew they couldn’t get where I was, at least that many of them couldn’t comprehend what I knew as reality, so I thought the reason for my having received it must be for help in protecting the faith of others.

I started down the path with that kind of optimism. It wasn’t long before I entered sparse timber. The trail at that point had more definition which meant to me that it had been frequented more often by human beings, as I was nearing the world of man once again. So I thought little of it and just kind of accepted the phenomenon as natural. About then, I saw two men approaching from below. They had seen me and were coming up to meet me. They waved and I waved back.

“Hello there,” the man in front called out.”

I acknowledged him. They were smiling and of course, so was I. I was eager to show my sword and to talk about what I had seen on the rim. When they came up to me, the man who had called out stood directly in front of me and appeared greatly interested in the sword. The other man, taller, stood off to the side on my right. He too seemed very friendly and I saw them look at each other as if they were communicating. I just figured they were happy to see me and were eager to learn about where I had been and what the sword meant.

As I explained to them how the sword had been given to me by the angel and what I had seen, the man in front of me asked if he could hold it. I saw no reason why not, so I let him take it by the handle. Just at that point, the other man hit me on the side of the head and I staggered from the blow. Then the man in front of me, holding the sword in his left hand, laid a fist into my gut knocking the wind out of me. I could not catch my breath and I fell to me knees. Then the other man hit me again on the back of the neck and I fell unconscious on the trail.

Sometime later I awoke to pain in my neck and ribs. I gasped for air at first, but then caught enough to sit up. I put my hand on the side of my head where the first blow had levied and looked around. I did not see the men anywhere. They were gone and they had taken the sword.

“No!” I cried out. “No. Lord, how can this be?” I couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to steal that from me, but they obviously had. I was lucky to be alive. “Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry. I have lost it already.” I got to my feet to gain my bearings. At first I was quite distraught. I tried to bring on the attitude of joy, but frankly, I could not. They had taken the most dear thing to me. I felt both guilt and remorse over its loss.

“Lord, you trusted me with it.” I stumbled around not knowing which way to go. My head hurt, my gut was sore and my neck was taught with strain. I massaged my neck with my right hand and decided to walk back toward the rim. Why would I have ever wanted to go back into the world? I wondered. I could see and understand that the knowledge I had gained was not explainable to people in the world, that it could not be understood by most. “But God, I only wanted to help in the fight,” I moaned. No one was there to hear my complaint.

Eventually, I worked my way back up the draw to the edge of the rim. I looked across the abyss to see if I could see anything, but I could not. It was just a huge abyss with green on the other side and I was just a man standing on the edge of it, perplexed and confused.

I sat down in a lotus position (because I saw nothing on which to sit) and put my hands to my eyes. I felt like crying, but could not. I felt heavy guilt and regret. I felt despair. Then I heard the mocking. It was a quiet kind of laughter coming from somewhere near. I opened my eyes, cocked my head; but I could not see anyone. Then I realized that it must be coming from dark spirits, for it certainly taunted me. It wanted to feed the heaviness in my soul with more heaviness.

I stood up at once. “Well, I can’t see you; but I know who you are,” I cried loudly. “Your names are Guilt, Failure, and Despair and you are in the company of Regret. Yes, I am just a man but I say you have no authority over me. You cannot dissuade me from the truth. You cannot take my faith from me. You cannot!” I raised my fist. “If I could see you, I’d....”

Then they appeared. Three dark angels stood in front of me and a fourth back a little behind them. I stood my ground. They were not talking, just looking at me. They were ugly, quite frankly, and I could smell them as unclean. All four were no larger than I was. They had no light about them but they were winged. All four had scares from battle and faces of inner torment. They were ungodly. Had I been on less treacherous ground, I might have been repulsed by their appearance, but I knew I had to be strong.

“By authority of the One Whose Victory was written from before the beginning of time,” I command you to leave.

They looked at each other. The one nearest me, looked back at me and a stinking smile crossed his lips. They did not move. “I am not yours and I never will be. Depart.” As difficult as it was I knew I had to turn away from them, so I did. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in anticipation of preeminent attack.

Nonetheless, I started to walk away with my head held high when my foot kicked a stone. I looked down for my footing and there saw the sword lying on the ground. Realizing it was the same sword I had lost, and instantly being aware that I could lose it again, I grabbed it off the ground a swung it around to greet my foes all in one instant. And lucky I did for they were coming at me as one. My sword cut right through two of them, beheading one and severing the arm of another. The other two seeing their comrade fall, stopped. The severed head, however this was possible I don’t know, rolled on the ground, gaining momentum until it went over the edge of the abyss.

At that point the three others who had taunted me, fled into the draw from which I had come.

I stood dazed. The forearm of the second attacker lay bleeding on the soil at my feet. I looked at the blade of the Sword of Joy, yet nothing was on it. No blood, nothing. But the fine blade glittered and shown brightly in the morning sun.

Then I realized that there had been no sunlight at all in the draw along the trail I had taken to go back into the world. It had been daylight, but no direct sun. I lowered the sword letting its tip touch the soil for it was heavy to hold up and I was weary from all that had transpired.

“How is this? How can all this be?” I asked. But no one was there to answer. My mind raced over everything. I saw way back into the long trek I over which I had persevered to get to the rim. And I realized that I could not go back into the world again, not in the way a man does. If I were going to help anyone, I had first to learn how to protect this treasure I had been given. If it was to protect my faith, what would protect it?

The first men I had encountered had tried to steal it from me and had I not been somehow blessed, they would have succeeded. “Oh God,” I cried out, lowering my head. I closed my eyes to pray, “Oh Father, help me understand. You are over there and I am here. You have given this to me and the world wants to steal it form me. I don’t know how to protect myself. Teach me. I don’t know how to wield this sword. Teach me. I don’t even know when I should...teach me. Lord God, I ask you, please...teach me.”

When I opened my eyes, I saw there at my feet the faint outline of a pathway moving north along the rim. I took it. I followed as best I could the faint markings in the dusty soil along the edge of the abyss, transferring the sword periodically from hand to hand. Joy had returned into my breast. The pains went away. My stride increased in length. Sureness and courage filled my being. This time I was on the right track and I knew it.

# # #

A Weapon of Choice

(Continued from Lines of Authority)

With my hands on the handle and my forehead against the jewels on the cross-guard, I prayed thusly. I remained on my knees for some time, silent, pondering the things I had seen and knew to be true. The wind that had come up earlier had stopped and all was still about me. Now and then I broke the quiet air with gentle words of prayer, expressing my joy over the insights I had been given.

As I leaned into the sword, my forehead lay against the jewels set into its handle. My arms rested beneath the grip of my hands. An energy came from the sword. I felt a pulse, very gently at first, penetrating my skull, moving through my hands down the length of my arms and back up into my shoulders. The sensation was pleasant and soft, like the rhythm of a brook, encouraging my thoughts.

A peace settled over me. I could think of nothing but joy. I felt joy from the experiences, joy from the insights and joy from the anticipation of what might come. Joy was everywhere in me. The sword increased in vibration until I heard it humming in my ears. Still I expressed joy, keeping my eyes closed.

Then another kind of energy came into my awareness and it was not good. Something swarmed about my head, like wasps, only larger. I opened my eyes to see what it was but saw nothing there; yet I could feel the disturbance in the air, separate from the sword. The sword became more vibrant yet. I looked at the jewels inlaid and saw them pulsating light from within, Brilliant blues, reds and purples sparkled before me, pulsating hues and rich transparencies of gemstone. They glowed almost as if they were living. “What is this?” I asked. Immediately the answer came: The joys of saints and martyrs.

“Joys?” I asked.

Gems of the saints and martyrs.”

“Yes,” I whispered, then I yelled my new discovery, “Yes!” I rose to my feet quickly to their surprise. I knew the names of the dark spirits swarming: Dissuader, Despair, Doubter and Venom. They flew about me taunting and daring, trying to get my attention away from God.

Now I could see them. I had the Sword of Joy in my hands. I swung it through the air all about, yelling testimony. “God is Glorious beyond compare! Sovereign and Great! Flee from me, you spirits of darkness, or go into the pit!”

They fled. That which had come to mock and destroy the tenderness of my faith fled like scared rabbits from the wielding of my sword. I saw their forms fly off and disappear.

Once again, peace settled over me. I understood. The sword was for the protection of faith, my weapon to wield in the coming fight.

Lines of Authority

Turning prayer comes when one stands in the place firmly where God planted his feet. I stand on the edge of the Great Abyss. I meet another soul there and talk with him. We both want to cross over and wonder how, if ever it will be possible. Something in my breast holds firm that it is, but maybe not now. He probably sees it the same way.

Rather than walking together, we separate for a time. I walk north in the direction of the two others I had seen earlier. I am walking perhaps 20 or 30 feet back from the rim, looking occasionally across the wide gap at the green verdure on the other side. I don’t see tropical jungles or heavy green forests; I simply see that there is lushness in the green growth of life over there, whereas I have just come out of a desert.

I am healthy and strong, not depressed or otherwise influenced by much except that I am aware of the burdens of many people I love. My empathy goes out to them. It’s like I can’t communicate what I see. None of those whose burdens I carry believe the chasm can be breached. They seem lost in the world I’ve left behind and unable to see the truth I look at in the distance. Is it the promised land? Then what faith must I have to bring back to them?

As I walk, my eyes are caught by the sparkling of light in the atmosphere across the way. I look to identify the source of disturbance. The sky opens and closes in minute separations of light. I see beings on the other side of the chasm, where the light breaks the scene open. The beings are fighting. It is a battle that I see only in vignettes, in glimpses through rips in the air.

I stop. I am awestruck. I watch intently, seeing only momentarily through openings into another realm that close rapidly. Some of those being fought are driven to the edge of the abyss into which some of fall. Their living bodies flail in the air as they disappear out of sight into the dark fog below. Is this the battle of Good and Evil? Surely it is God’s army that is winning. What am I seeing?

Suddenly a wind comes up from the direction of these scenes. A dark angel flies by, ignoring my presence, followed shortly by another of the same. They are fleeing and their flight is back into the world from which I’ve come. Then a being of great glory comes behind them, carrying a sword. He sees me and lands gently with ease a short distance from me.

“Lord, God!” I exclaim. I fall to my knees but I keep my eyes on his magnificent brightness.

“I am not God. It is God who commands me, mortal man. It is the Lord of Hosts whom you worship. Do not worship me and do not be afraid.”

I was shivering with excitement and had no words of reply.

“You are allowed to see what you see. And you see it with discerning eyes.” He handed me his sword. I took it. It shown brightly in the reflection of his light and was warm to my touch. Then he flew up and went back across the abyss disappearing into a point of light. And I saw no more that day. The scene was back as it had been.

The sword however was real and in my hand. It had weight. It was sharp, very sharp on both sides of its blade. I looked at it a long while. Jewels adorned its handle with inlaid gold and silver. It was both pretty and lethal, I knew though I saw no blood on its blade.

I stuck its point in the soil so that it stood straight up with its handle on top. The guard of its handle met my hands and the height of my forehead as I leaned against it praying on my knees. “O Glorious Father in Heaven, O Lord Jesus who returns and even now leads this fight, show me what to do. Speak in my heart, Lord. Speak in my heart so that I can carry out my part in this great fight. If I’m not allowed over, then make me strong here. Make me strong in faith and fill me with You Divine Courage. I thank You and praise You for this Sword of Truth. Teach me how to wield it. Let me join the fight not relying on myself, but on You. O Lord, I pray by your Holy Name.”

# # #

Salt of the Earth

Fiction:

Clay Walker was a decent man, dependable and without pretention. He was born and raised in hard times crossing the prairie as a youngster with his parents in the late 1880's. They made it to Montana and settled on the edge of the plains in Billings where he grew up. At the age of eighteen, toughened by lean years and hard work, he left home for Missoula.

"Want to work the timber," he said. "I like trees, Ma. I want to go work the timber." She was a woman of fiber and told him he'd be alright. "You'll go far, Clay. You just look up, you here me? You trust God and he'll bless you."

Clay worked the timber out of the little town of Border near Missoula where he learned how to dance on logs. But the money wasn't good there and the men were a bit raw for Clay's liking so he moved on to Thompson Falls where he became a River Pig, one of a rare set of men who rode cut logs to mills down river. River Pigs kept the logs moving, pried the jambs loose or blew them apart if they couldn't pry them. It was a dangerous game; but Clay figured it was "no worse than 'tother."

In the spring of 1907, he and four others worked their way down to Sandpoint on logs and boat through the rapids of Cabinet Gorge into the windy waters of Pend d'Oreille Lake where they boomed the logs to wait for a tug. A few days later they brought them to bay at the Humbird Mill. Hanging around there for a few months he was promoted to Bay Captain. by Mr. John Humbird, owner of one of the most prosperous mills "west side of Minnesota." It was his first job of recognition and importance and he accepted with sincerity.

Humbird said Clay had "leadership quality," which he thought meant he'd be good at leading men in war. So he took his job with serious intent and managed the men beneath him with gentle, but firm command. He'd seen a general of the U.S. Calvary once and remembered how that man was. That's how Clay Walker managed the rough and strong men in his charge: just as his mother had told him was the way to oversee men, "in simple truth and a straight forward manner."

Clay Walker wasn't a fighter, but he wasn't one to cower down either. He was a man of truth and the truth was that if a man in his charge was out to hurt someone that man was out of a job. He was quick in judgement and discerned with a sharp eye. The men who worked for him respected him for that very reason and those who stayed with him, found him loyal and true.

Taming the Shrewd

If you've played Scrabble, the word-game on a game board, you know the result of a good game is a maze of interconnected words. If you've played competitive Scrabble, you know of strategies that can improve your odds of winning. Add further word studies and memory lists of words behind those strategies and you have a better chance of winning in competition. But of course, the same is true for your opponent.

I liken competitive Scrabble to being on the web effectively. We have millions of people and hundreds of thousands of businesses plying waters on the great-blue pixelled ocean. Motives are almost instinctive, certainly primary. Most want recognition. Whether business or person, nearly all are looking to mark their presence on Planet Earth.

That's just like the millions of Scrabble players who play the game without strategy or studied thinking in place. The odds of their success in competition are diminished to almost zero. They become the sand on the beach overwhich the real sailors tread. If they gain recognition at all, they may be nothing more than a footstep in the sand at low tide. They'll wash away in time.

To play competitive Web, you need a model like competitve Scrabble. You are entering a maze, step by step. To become competitive, you first have to start. No entry, no gain; and entry without much knowledge surely spells failure: if nothing worse, in the form of minimized results. So you don't give up there; if you want to sail successfully on the pixelled waters, you have to gain the skills of an advanced sailor: study, application, study, application. This is true for any form of learning.

Get your feet wet. Taste the salt air. Feel the wind. Tack and cut. Use the rudder. Play it safe and return to port; but prepare always to sail the ocean grand, because out there, across the seemingly impassable sea, are new worlds that can bring you rich return on trade.

So I have two metaphors working here to understand what it takes to make it on the web. One is about what it takes to make it in the maze of competitive Scrabble; the other, about learning to sail well-enough to cross an ocean. These two models give clue to my approach to the ever-advancing, always-changing pace of the web and web design.

Do I want recognition? Of course! Do I want to engage in a prosperous trade? I don't want to be an ordinary grain of sand on the beach. I want to sail the sea all the way across successfully and back again. Of course! How about you? If you want what I want, then stick around or come back to my beach once in awhile where I expect you'll see results of applied learning as I go through the failures and mistakes inherently necessary to maximize my understanding and consequent ability to use the web effectively.

A Good Question

It's a good question...for me. I've been playing piano since 1982 when I first had the notion that something musical was happening inside my brain. I wanted to know what it was. I was distraught, divorced, alone and wondering.

A friend had a piano and I was close enough to her to gain permission to play it once in awhile. Tinker might be a better word for those early days. But something was happening inside me. I could hear simple musical melodies inside that were pleasant and soothing for the most part and sometimes lamenting or angry. I found that expressing myself on her piano with no one around was good for me. It gave me a kind of footing to stand on. But I kept it from everyone else.

When I tried to play for someone with whom I wanted to share, I could not. Self-consciousness inhibited me beyond any capability to override it. My music just wouldn't come out the same when effort was in the way. A few months passed by in this manner. I moved from a rural setting into Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and bought an old upright piano for my apartment.

By then I had decided I didn't want to imitate other piano players. Either I would express what I had or I would not. Playing music that belonged to others just wasn't in my spectrum. I admired Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles both at that time because they could really bust loose and neither one, I reasoned, could see sheet music. I wanted to play with the same kind of lively freedom they showed.

One night I put it into practice. I closed my drapes, shut off all lights and went to the piano where I stayed for a long time, feeling the keys and hearing the sounds without being able to see my fingers. I was encouraged by what I discovered that night, so I set up another rule: to play an hour at a session in complete darkness without correcting anything. I did that for several weeks wherein I realized something else. New music began to pop out...sometimes in the simple misapplication of a finger placement. Because I refused to correct myself and start over, I had to feel around and wade through more risk in order to find my way back to where I had been.

The new phrases, born in that manner, were sometimes exceedingly pleasant, brief as they might be in my stumblings. So I placed a tape recorder beneath my feet "to catch the musical butterflies" as they flew in and out of my mistakes.

During the day, I'd listen to the tapes until at night I could repeat some of those "special little guys" at will. I learned new songs that way, new expressions and I learned how to make spontaneous adaptations on the piano.

This was my beginning. I never set out on piano road wanting to be or trying to be a piano player. But I am today. In some circles, especially the more academically trained, I am somewhat of a nemisis or at least an apparent irritant. But in other circles I am a pleasing source of inner music. I am able to tap into some people in ways that more traditional musicians cannot.

What can I say? I never set out to be a piano player. It just happened. But it happened because I started and stayed with it, refusing to adapt to ways others insisted was the only way.

Imagination Crosses The Barriers of Time

I'm not necessarily sure from whence these characters come. They are just inside me.

This man's name, by some ethereal imagining, is Pinkerton. He lived more than a hundred years ago according to my empathic interpretation of him. He's another character in the novel-in-progress, Humbird.

I suppose you could say it's an historical novel, not hysterical mind you, but historical in that I'm drawing from an actual event that took place in I'm guessing roughly 1912 on the shores of Lake Pend d'Oreille in North Idaho where I currently live. The North Idaho pronunciation of the french phrase Pend d'Oreille is ponderay. Some people spell it the latter way nowadays, but I like the old french version. Quite a history here.

The event I refer to was a mill fire that burned down a relatively brand new all-wood (and quite sizeable) cutting barn for the Humbird Lumber Mill. The cutting barn was built out over the waters of the lake on pilings. A train track brought logs to the water on a long pier where they were dumped into Pend d'Oreille Bay for holding before being singled out and ramped up to the saw blades for lumber. Many water-logged timbers still reside in the clay bottom of the lake. And incidentally, these characters are all made from clay taken from the shoreline where the mill existed.

North Idaho had a major rail line passing through Sandpoint (google it on google maps), so the mill was worked partly by transients who travelled the line. This character, Pinkerton, is my imagination of the man who controlled the paychecks for the mill owner, a true Mr. Humbird. Jim Paton, posted earlier is the villain who started the fire, having been, in his mind, swindled from partnership in a Minnesota lumber mill.

Leave it to writers to imagine history. Remember it's a novel; i.e., fiction. So these guys didn't really exist. Or did they? Hummn. Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that there's real mystery about that fire. There were human bones left behind and period-dated shoes found along the shoreline. Much more. Mystery?

Why do I post them here? Because they are also part of my journalling dialogue about creativity. Scultping and photographing them helps my imagination give them life.

Another Language

Every soul has a song it sings. When you're tuned in to the inner being, you hear it; it moves you. It may be rhythm, beat, melody, harmony; it may be voice, percussion, or some form of instrumentation such as piano as it is for me. It may be orchestral and it may be nothing more than a whistle playing in the background of your mind.

Even then it may express anger, happiness, sweet joy or sorrow.

What is music that it stirs so many into life? One of the better memories I have of piano in performance was playing for my Grandmother Hattie who'd suffered a stroke and lay mute in a rest home nearly 300 miles from where I lived at the time.

One morning I resolved to drive there and play for her. She hadn't spoken a word to anyone in close to a year. I drove the whole distance with a recording of my piano on tape, playing in the car stereo, over and over. I arrived after six hours of driving, went to the management whom I had not called and asked if I could have her wheeled into the reception room where an old upright stood against the wall. They agreed there would be no harm in that.

They brought her to me in her bed, which they positioned next to the piano. Several elderly folk sat in that room, too, all in various states of condition. I started playing to my grandmother, who'd never heard me play before, watching her and she looked at me too for quite a while. I played on and on without sheet music, just thinking on the piano. She fell asleep finally, but I continued anyway. I played out my soul. I played with everything I had in me because it was the only way to communicate the love I had for her.

At one point, while she slept, I was drifting in some rather melancholic thought line when an old woman, who'd been stooped over in her wheel chair apparently asleep, called out, "Help...help...help..." so softly. No one came to her so I stopped for the moment and went to her. I leaned over and said, "I'm here." I put my hand lightly on her back to comfort her and connect. She asked without looking at me, "Are you God?"

"No," I said, "But I am his helper. Are you alright?"

"Oh yes, I'm alright," she said.

I went back to the piano and played again shifting into something more lively. An elderly man took hold of my rhythm and began to sing as if he were dancing, wordless sounds that mimicked the melody. He was caught up in the joy! He stayed there, in that place of rythm and sound for more than two days according to the people who worked there. They hadn't seen him that happy in many months.

When I finished, my Grandmother had awakened again and was looking at me with pleasant eyes. I went to her side to kiss her on the cheek, but before I could she looked up at me and whispered in a voice clearly that I shall never forget, "Thank you for playing the piano for me." It was a soft, raspy whisper, but the words were clear as tiny bells.

To my knowledge that was the only thing she spoke to anyone in more than a year. She died shortly after that. But she gave me in return a lasting, penetrated reason to play piano from the heart. It's been now, fifteen years and I still carry her memory, her look and her words inside. She visits me in that way at those times when I might lose heart.

Lay Down the Burden

I'm fast approaching the legacy years. Seems like yesterday that I was a young man. When I reflect back on the span of time between then and now, I see a lot of things I wish I had done differently. I know this is true for just about everyone who passes over the half-century mark. But the past was lived just as it was, right and wrongly. We can't change it. We're beings bound to the laws of time.

We can lay down the burdens, however. If we're the guilty party, then we can't free ourselves until we've confessed to God himself in honest, deep and penetrating rememberance. He'll see right through our falsehood, our coverings and any pretentions we have about the matter.

My advice for the guilty is hold back nothing. Lay it all out before God or you won't be moving forward. In my own case, this took time, several nights alone on one specific incidence, a lot of nights and searching days on others. But I can stand now, cleansed and renewed, looking forward because I confessed everything to the best of my ability to remember--everything.

If you are a victim of someone's guilt, I'd say to you the same thing. Lay down the burden of unforgiveness and bitterness. Hard to do, huh? It's probably more difficult to do that than it is to ask forgiveness for your own guilt.

I once was confronted with a situation in which I had to forgive someone close to me for what I felt had been a great injustice and a lot of hurt. I had suffered greatly from their outspoken judgement and what I believed was an errant misinterpretation of who I was. When I approached the moment, I had to confess to God that I could not forgive that person on my own. I simply did not have it in my heart to forgive this injury. So I told God that.

Knowing He is the source of all forgiveness and that Christ died for my sins as well as yours, to catch them up in His Resurrection and take them before the Father of all creation from whence forgiveness is handed down--knowing I could not do this on my own, I asked Him to intercede through my heart. I asked God to move through me in spirit and show me how to forgive the one who had injured me, show me how to use His Divine Forgiveness. I was moments away from the actual necessity and only a breath away from one of the greatest personal insights in my life.

God did what I asked. He stepped into my consciousness in a way that showed me that this other person was no more guilty than I...and hadn't the Father, in his Divine love for His Son, forgiven me? Oh, what a revelation! I stepped up to the situation with a glorified awareness. I looked out across the room full of people where my heart was being challenged and silently forgave the one person present who inhibited unknowingly my ability to play piano in performance. By God's Divine intercession, I forgave that person as God had forgiven me: through and by the power of Jesus Christ.

I laid my burden down. to this day, I don't know if the other person ever knew that such a thing had gone on in me, but I know that my relationship to that person changed significantly from that moment on. Not only did I step up and play piano with an exhuberant and joyful heart, I played with a freedom uncommon to me at that time. That incident became one of the greater lessons of my life.

It also healed the relationship I had with that person. I no longer felt the burden of judgement against me. In the turn of my heart, it no longer mattered what that person thought. I was free from caring one way or the other. So I was free to love back instead and regardless of whether my love was accepted or not! A Divine circle of truth and consequence passed through my being and left its permanent track.

Unfinished Matters

Without an adversary, nothing great would get done. What's left unfinished matters very much in that the desire to finish gets it done. That's why having before us, the unattainable, the impossible, the difficult, the very hard, the greater challenge (name it what you will), that's why it matters and that's why we have adversarial confrontation in nearly everything that's important.

The greater the adversary, the greater is the faith required to overcome it. Faith is the realization that you are not alone, that God exists and is with you. The path down which you walk is not chosen by whim, nor is it there by some random coincidence. For greatness to occur, there must be difficulty in front of you and the difficulty is ALWAYS defined by the nature of your desire.

Otherwise you would not grow.

That's what's missing from the 3-part creed entered below in A Map for Change. I had no mention of the adversary inherent in every growth process. When I wrote it, I knew it came from some one's experience outside my own, that it was some one's statement not my own. It was their idea. I thought about it, thought it worthy to write about; but I had a tough time with it because I knew it wasn't quite that simple.

I dreamt during the night and woke with the title above in my head. I knew as the phrase repeated through the fog of half-sleep that I had hold of something important. I woke myself up quickly, shook my head and threw the blanket back. I grabbed a shirt off the rack and pants from the floor. I put my feet in slippers and came to the keyboard quickly to release this butterfly into the pixel garden before it left.

I knew something was inherently right about the notion. All adversarial confrontation signals something. It means you are on the right track. You wouldn't have the adversary there if you weren't taking the specific steps your desire requires. I wouldn't have the abyss in front of me if I wasn't on the Edge of Awakening. The barrier wouldn't seem so impossible if I wasn't right near a true break through. I wouldn't have the pain if healing wasn't underway.

I broke my back once, and my neck fracturing 4 vertebrae and compressed a fifth. The pain from the injury was a lot and constant. I was in and out of consciousness for quite awhile, but I saw some things in that ethereal place of spirit that assured me the pain was good. I could feel my toes. Lying on my side in the hospital bed, I woke to see my hands in front of me which I opened and closed in pain. Pain saturated my whole body. It felt like I had 80 pounds of crushed rock stuck in my back. Pain was everywhere.

But I was alive and could feel my toes. The first words off my lips were, "Thank you, Father, for the pain. Thank you for the pain, O God! I know what it means." I knew it meant I was going to heal, that He had given me back to life for His good reason, that I was alive by Grace alone and would return to full health in due time. I knew right there I would once again play piano and that I would play with greater freedom, write with more fervor, create with greater creativity--because I was not only alive, but aware of how temporal life is as well.

I knew also that I had not yet finished what matters.

The adversary comes with many faces. Most adversarial conditions in reality have the face of something outside yourself. It might be a mountain, a person, a power in place, a circumstance--might be anything. Only you would know. But here is a most important cue: The nature of all adversary resides within the mind of the one challenged by it. The mountain climber faces fear. The abused faces the abuser, but only in fear. The oppressed face the dictator who rules by fear. The weak and un-achieved face impossibility, but only by fearful conclusion.

The opposite of fear is faith. Faith is knowing that God is with you. If you don't know that yet, you had better get down on your knees and confess your wayward ways, because He is greater than you are. He created you. You are the creation. So humble yourself, then look your adversary in the eye and say to it, "Thank you, Father, for the pain that holds me back, for it draws me closer to You."

That's when faith comes into the heart and that which oppresses the potential is laid down before an open path.

Kindred Soul

I caught a link to a book titled, The Tenth Dimension by Rob Bryanton, a Canadian thinker who's exploring a most intriguing idea. I took the link to his website www.tenthdimension.com. As far reaching and expanded as his concept is, it explains very well to me much of what I see in my brain. So I allow him in.

His thinking satisfies a deeper side of myself, brings me out of the stupor of worldly striving, that imp that rides my shoulder bidding constantly that I'm not good enough to write this sort of stuff, that I have nothing to say, no perceptions, no insights of value to anyone. Reading the thoughts of a man like Bryanton shakes me back to reality. I walk away from the brink of the abyss (scroll down to On the Edge of Awakening, Jan. 4, 07). Bryonton could very well be one of the other souls I see walking there along the great divide between now and the Awakening--because what I see in the imaginations is as real as the world from which I type this blog.

He makes me wonder and be satisfied with the possibility that all this inner stuff that lives pleasantly and sometimes bothersomely, that it's good. Good, because it's truth. Greater truth and more real than much of what I write and see in the success-driven world around me.

Do I want a better life? You bet I do! I want to reach out and attain. I want to accomplish everything in me, to manifest the dreams of my inner man: to be an artist extraordinaire, to be one of the best and greatest writers of all time, to play piano originally and outstandingly in public to invent song on stage in performance--great song, lasting and unforgetable, play it out right there, live, in performance for the first time ever heard. These things I want.

I cry out from the darkness of my soul. Sometimes I pray fervant prayers and stand firm, steadfast in believing faith thinking I understand God and have my right relationship in place so that I can actually pray and be heard. And then there are days, sometimes weeks where God is far from me seemingly and I cannot find Him despite my honest efforts.

Then my eye catches something. I click on it and sail off into the imaginations of another thinker who is pondering the imponderable and he feeds me. Thank you Rob Bryanton, for thinking. You've stimulated my inner being by showing me the possibility of some of what I suspect is true.

A Map for Change

One quite successful friend of mine told me he saw 3 key principles at work in growing an enterprise.

First, he said, in order to grow, a company has to maintain its customer base. Growth cannot take place if you neglect those who helped establish your business. That makes clear sense to me.

Secondly, in order to grow you have to work within your current model, he said. You do what's been working while you look to integrate a new method or approach.

But to experience growth, he told me, you've have to explore new ways, new technology while in the process of maintaining what you have.

I try to see this conceptually. In words it's logical. In application, it seems fairly easy to understand. I want to see the application of change however as an image, so that when I'm confronted with various degrees of effort or disappointment, I have a visual map by which to plot my way through.

Crystal Clear

I'm studying daily to bring my dream into reality. I have an amount of time set aside for this purpose every day. Though I am flexible as to when I use it, I am committed to using that time every single day. In the course of this study I have realized that one of the key ingredients to creating a positive outcome is a well-defined dream.

I used to think that a person with a personal vision was someone who was endowed with it from early on. I no longer think that. I've come to believe that defining and holding a dream is a choice one makes and can make at any time in their life.

In a world fraught with conflict, oppression, monetary slavery, and worldly wants it seems increasingly more difficult to hold and carry a dream. I handle this under the self-created credo: Carry The Dream, Work The Day.

The credo works to keep me on track. I know I'm not laying down the dream when I go into my work day. The dream remains alive, steeping on the stove top of work like a good soup, there to refresh me when I take a break or find the need to remember where I'm headed.

Like a good soup, my dream has a recipe, too. I work to perfect it. I've come to believe from studying others that the best dreams are crystal clear in definition.

Weeks ago, before launching this blog, I set out to define my dream. I wanted a picture of the best I could attain. I began journal ling to discover those "things I'd like to see develop in my lifetime." With my journal, I captured the thoughts, hopes and wants so that I could look at them intelligently and making decisions that would favor such things.

I think many people don't realize a dream or don't have one because they think a dream is defined entirely in one sitting. Not so, in my opinion. I let mine stew. I added this and that as the weeks went on and refined it. I threw out many ideas that by seeing them on paper became lesser priorities, things I recognized as diversions, side-tracking or excuses.

Now I have an exceptional stew on the stove of progress. And I've gained a kind of patient confidence in defining my dream as I make it crystal clear. Though my dream may be very large, it can be reached and will, I believe, become reality before I'm gone.

And in considering the end of the race (for one day it will end), the best dream I can define for myself includes a plan for succession and legacy. God willing, I will leave a positive influence to assist in the personal growth of other people.

Take Ownership

I had the great pleasure this afternoon of attending the meeting of a family-owned company in which two brothers who've been at it for thirty years sold their multi-million dollar firm back to the employees who helped them build an empire.

The younger of the two (now in his fifties) spoke specifically about the value of "taking ownership." All who stride into the ether hoping to create a business on the web can find value in his wisdom.

He made five solid points about ownership, what it means and why we need to take it seriously. Here is my interpretation of his thoughts:

1) It's my (the owner's) responsibility to grow my company. "If a company is not growing," he said, "it is going backward." It's true. There's no such thing as a plateau. It's more like flying an air plane. If you're not gaining air, you're falling out of the sky. Growth is essential and growth is always the responsibility of the owner. It can't be pawned off on hirelings. If you are the owner, then that's what you do! You own what you do and you do it therefore. You oversee growth and you oversee those who help you attain it.

2) Your company must be profitable. Without profit you are not growing. No gain means you are falling away from your customer support. Profit isn't there for pleasure. It allows you to acquire the necessary technology and equipment to stay abreast of fast changing times. Having a website is not enough. It's your responsibility in ownership to ensure profit to your venture.

3) Success is founded on customer service. Without it, you lose your customers. If you're an information byway on the information highway, you're not giving enough knowledge in your field. You've got to make it "click easy."

4) You have to provide a quality product. Let's face it. Surfers have far too many options where to go. Want them back? Give them what they came for in the first place and give them plenty of it. It's got to be quality: quick, easy and satisfying. Or they won't return.

5) Build a team. Let the players in. Give them a forum. Let them show their stuff too. Remember, you're the owner. Own what you do, but let your customers show who they are. Give them space and they'll return.

Passing the baton of ownership, this highly successful executive, his brother and his team took their company from ground zero to competitive national trade in the food industry with revenues surpassing $100 million annually. They did that from hands-on no money days in the beginning to wealth in the end because they took ownership.

An owner does what he is, male or female. The owner owns up to the task.

What do you think?

Five Strong Horses

On the human side, here's something for you to check out. The Gallup International Research and Development Center published a book recently titled, Now Discover Your Strengths. The authors, Donald Clifton and Marcus Buckingham, have created true influence with this book. It's ISBN is 0-7432-0114-0. It's worth ordering if you are into changing where you are to where you want to go or be.

Gallup's premise and the subject of their book is that people who discover their strengths and who then learn to stay within them, have the greatest chances of success in the world. The chosen direction doesn't matter as much as relying on the early-in-life imprint made on you, an impression that sets up who you are and how you react or proactively take part in your society, family and work environment. The premise of the book is based on millions of surveys taken on successful people over several years. The results are indeed very interesting. Clifton and Buckingham have narrowed the usable results of those studies (which continue now at an exponential rate) into thirty-some categories of human personality strengths. Much of the corporate world, especially in America, but abroad as well, has been influenced by this analysis.

My personal strengths are Maximizer, Strategy, Empathy, Ideation and Woo, in that order: my five strong horses.

I read it, took the assessment and have learned that the results predicted for me are absolutely right on! The more I observe these characteristics at work in me, at play or not at play in my relationship to the world, the more I've come to understand their importance. To better manage my life, I now find ways to manage these traits to my advantage. Doing so has made me far more effective and productive, even in the arts.

The drawing in this picture illustrates my five strong horses (my strengths) pulling the chariot of my life into battle. If I don't have the reins of discipline on them, they go every which way and I end up losing. If I try to use somebody else's horses to perform or interact, I lose as well. But because I understand that these traits are mine, and because I continue to look for greater understanding of how to utilize them best, I succeed in areas I never thought possible.

As an example for you, my use of a drawing such this to illustrate my need to manage my strengths is the application of ideation and strategy--two of my five strong horses. I stay away, as best I can, from using other people's horses (traits).

We are all uniquely who we are, after all.

Certainly there are many aspects to defining a person's success, but this one for me, added to other things I know about myself, has become a management tool of great value.

Buy the book and you can take the assessment free. They want you to read their analysis first, and that's a good idea.

On the Edge of Awakening

I stood on the edge of a great abyss. I wanted to get to the otherside; in fact, I knew that crossing this chasm involved my whole purpose and reason for being. But crossing seemed impossible.

"How could one?" I asked. No one was around to answer. I was alone in this problem. At least it seemed that way: I, on the one side; my desire, on the other. "Has any man ever crossed such a wide birth?"

It was morning, a cloudless day. The early sun shown golden across the high desert air of the plateau across which I had spent the night. I felt warmed by the light, as if possibility was actually there on the otherside of hope.

All reason, all logic, all evidence however, pointed to impossibility. "There is no way," I muttered. and turned back from the precipice to look at the distance I had come. Behind me were miles of territory through which I had experienced every kind of human emotion from unbearable disappointment to unspeakable joy. I could have concluded standing there that all of life had been lived, that really, I had no more to find. I might have concluded the chasm was death, the end of the walk; but I could see much ground on the otherside and it bid me with it's green lushness, the verdure of life.

"No, this is not the end," I said. "I will find a way. A way exists; I know it."

I remembered the beginning so long ago. I, like others, had stood in the pre-dawn light and shivered with cold and fright, waiting for dawn to come. We were oppressed. We lived in darkness. We lived in fear and doubt. Many then believed there would be no dawn. They concluded that the light was false, an illusion from the heavens, an aurora perhaps dancing just over the horizon.

But I felt differently and I was not alone. Several weighed in to join me on the trek. "We'll go and meet the dawn," we proclaimed. We banded together struck out into the dark world crossing many treacherous places in search of the Awakening. Slowly, as fate would have it, our numbers dwindeld to few. Oh, we had days and daylight on that long path. We had not walked the whole way in darkness. We could see there as we see here. We could touch and feel and taste and smell. Though we trekked through spirit realms, our journey was as real as the physical to those of us who took it.

Some died, I think, in the journey. Some fell to vice. Some were overtaken. But in the last hours of the night preceding my arrival on the edge of this precipice, I had seen at least three who had come as far as I. Even as I looked back on the distance, I could feel them. I looked north and saw two walking away at some distance. I turned southward and saw one closer, standing on the edge. As I was about to hail, he sat down on a rock and put his hands to his eyes. He wept.

I took up stride to join him. I knew his emotion well. Perhaps, I could encourage him. He heard my steps and looked up as I approached. A smile passed over his countenance though his face reflected tears.

"Is this the dawn?" he asked, gesturing toward the chasm.

"No. It's morning. But this is not the end of our journey. This is not the Dawn of our Awakening. We must persevere."

"Do you suppose a way to cross exists?"

"That we cannot yet see? Yes. I suppose it does. How--I don't know. But we must not quit."

"We've come so far."

"Too far. We can't quit." In all the years of my walk, through all the searching and want and desire, I had carried hope in my heart that one day I would stand before the Glorious Light of God, that I would awaken to the Truth Within. "We cannot quit. This is only here to test us."