Bride's Dream

                    The Bride’s Dream    9/24/93

    We have lived more nightmare than life--and the telling of it is more wounding than relief.  Thank God for death, which puts an end to the trauma and the telling...  

    The most beautiful story I ever heard was of a king who came to his own, and, being ruled by stewards, they didn't know who he was.  All that he did brought them safety.  All that he said, brought them hope.  And in the end of what was the most beautiful story to me, he died in their service, and it was mercy that brought an end to his telling and his trials.   What an irony, that to me what was most beautiful must have been to him grief upon grief, and a relief for him to die.

    All our trials end at the grave, and nothing of sorrow can enter the Light.  All the wounding of this flesh, it ends at the grave, and nothing of defilement enters the Great Light.  So great is his justice that his death became my own. This threadbare king loved me before my wounding and my sorrow and all my degradation, and he loved me as I lived through the nightmare, and he loved me as I died. And the greatest mercy of my killing was the lifting that came after the solace of the silence of the grave.  He lifted me.  And it was easy, because I was light.  Nothing of the world could pass through the grave.  Oh, what solace!

    Friend, we live in a world, and there is evil present.  There is one who came after the king, who covets all which belongs to the king.  He desires you, who have given your heart to the king.  The one who came after wants to usurp the king and lusts after his bride, is it not so?  The passion of the usurper expresses itself in the degradation of the object of his lusts.  But his power ends with the flesh.  And the flesh ends with the grave. So here is my solace, dear friend.  Close your eyes.  Imagine your death.  At some point, don't you go to sleep?  What do you dream of?  I will tell you my dream.  More and more, I am dead to the world, and alive to the king......






Yes, I am a bride. 
I am called a daughter of Eve by reason of birth,
And a child of Abraham by reason of faith,
For I believe as he believed--
In the Eternal, The Ancient of Days--
The I AM.

So it is credited to me, as to Abraham, as righteousness
Because I put my faith in El Shadai, and believe in His promise
Even unto death.

Now His promise was for a son to be born;
A miraculous birth; a child of promise--
Not of the will of man, nor the will of the flesh,
But the expression of the promising will Him who is God,
The High King,
The Eternal.  The Ancient of Days
The I AM--
Supreme over all and alone worthy of all praise.

All this life that we see is the merest hint of His will....
And this promised Son, in Him does all good pleasure rest
The fullness of His brilliance
The wit and weight of His wisdom
The inevitability of His will
And in Him all the total of His great wide spirit
Requited and well comforted.

High and holy is He, this promised son--this peasant King
This steadfast shepherd, the one who walked among us!
This gentle nobleman whose wealth saw no displeasure in my rags
Whose great strength handled my plight like a cauled kitten.
By his name alone am I enjoined.

Have I shown thee my heart?
By reason of this faith, I am a child of Abraham
A child of promise, born to Him not by the will of man
Or by the will of the flesh
But by the kindness of the promising will of God.

So then, this God of Abraham, He has adopted me
For the purpose of promising me to the promised Son--
To enjoin me by the only name given to mankind
By which they may lay claim to life.
Now of myself, I am nothing.
I am of no account.  I am least of all lovely.
My own blood is a mongrel mix fouled by folly
And I am not proud of my ancestors or their traditions,
For it was all shame.
The world has a purity it calls its own,
Of which it can be proud, to be certain
But to this pride I can lay no claim,
For my people have all been exiled or dispersed,
Or carried off into captivity
And who knows how this blood has been sullied and mixed?
I am without a heritage of my own--unloved--not a people--
And a king’s son seeking alliance would laugh my lineage to utter scorn!

Is it not a wonderful mystery?
You see, I will lose nothing, and gain everything
By being covered by this Peasant King’s blood.
I will become one with Him and His people,
And He and His people are a noble, holy race
Held in the memory back to the beginning by the Ancient of Days.

Seeing what I stand to gain,
Shall I not be quickly divested of my mother tongue
And loosed from my crude garb and victual?
Oh death, here is your victory: that I am released from all that!

The King will robe me all His own, and call me “Loved!”
By His defense I shall stand before Him.
By His kind word I am made new and clean.
By His unction will my presence be savory to Him
My life as greater than the best the world’s alter has to give
My soul won,
Deeper than all the language that my clan could pen
Fair and beloved King, yea! I will sacrifice myself to Your desire
And would that I become all You dream of me!

Aye, for it is love sustains this desire; that endures waiting;
That is patient beyond the very mind.
For I am at once immediate and eternal.
So do I wait for my time to come.

The signal between us has already been given, my friend,
The quiet keeper of my heart will know--
Which is why I am at the ready!
For He will suddenly come,
We will escape our waiting and elope away
Through silver and black velvet to His Father’s house.
So I wait for His cry, His whispered exclamation
For the glimmer of His horse’s white forelock
And soft thud of impatient hoof.

My acquaintances mock me
Because my loins are girt and I am ready,
Either to run or to ride.
Aye!
Shall he come and find me all tangled in fine clothes and glass slippers?
Nay! 
But I will be ready
Either to run or to ride!
So now,
Go to your own fine banquet and dress ye then for your own dream!

But for mine, my dream is all for Him;
The Peasant King, the Great Shepherd,
The One who walked with us along the way
The very image of his own Father
There was never a robe could veil His heart;
Never so fine a handmade thing
Could outshine His visage
No indeed

But look,
Look upon His depth of face;
What could you give for that?
See how He is good?  Look upon His callused hands;
Put a finger here, where was the nail.
How could you pay for their labor?  What would be their wage?
Couldst thou give as Jesus gave?
There is none for it but thine own soul.
See how dear?

What can you compare?
There is nothing I would rather have,
Nothing you could give!

Yes, this flame in me burns hot and bright
And this love endures the waiting
With patience out of mind, and sighs beyond tongue,
And a weaning hope and a persevering faith
The world can only wonder at and shake her tinseled head.

9/24/93