A Dream
I liked to watch Maggie, the golden sunlight glinting off her hair, her skin glowing like the day, and her tiny features all abloom with the innocence of childhood. This particular day, she sat in her sandbox sifting sand, her chubby legs soaking up warmth from the sand below and sun above. Her baby-plump fingers were close together, scooping up shovels full of tawny, fine ground grains. With the cup of her palm full to overflowing, she’d raise her white arm high above her head in an arc that was unconsciously graceful for such a little one.
Little Maggie, not knowing she was graceful, not conscious of the cloudless sky of peace surrounding her, was fully whole within herself and her world. She took her Creator and her place in every sphere for granted and lived in harmony with all.
Immersed in watching, I didn’t think about Maggie’s faith, spirituality or lack of it. As her pudgy little hand lift to the sky—I saw only naturalness and play.
Her arm arched above her with the effortlessness of large leaves moving slowly on a windless day, wafting their way with utter relaxation from one place to another, stress free. Slowly turning and tipping her open hand earthward, she too watched the dry grains fall, smoother than sands run through the hourglass of time; finer too, for her hand turned earthward slowly, and opened slowly, and the grains slipped off slowly, so fine a stream, that many caught the light of day and glistened and sparkled in their descent.
For what seemed like hours Maggie poured sand, first from one hand, then occasionally from the other. The sun rose high in the sky and the blue grew only deeper, richer and more intense. As she scooped her small offerings, some grains and dusts, rose up on high, carried into the atmosphere to form the nuclei of raindrops. Other particularly numbered grains and dusts were poured out upon the earth again and again in different combinations and changed sequences.
But, no matter, the sun stayed warm and bright, the light intense, and the day warmed everywhere. I began to wonder why fair little Maggie didn’t get sunburned or a grownup didn’t come along to offer her an orange popsicle or an irrelevant comment, or a bit of sunscreen or umbrella—but no one came. And soon I was wondering why, when the sandbox disappeared, and she was sitting alone on a sandy shore beside a vast ocean, nothing else had changed. Her sand stayed dry. And I wondered if she heard the ocean sounds or noticed or the shells and starfish gathering together around her, edged closer by the incoming tide until she was surrounded by a circle of gifts from the sea, all soaking on the sun lit shore.
And I wondered again where her mother was, and if Maggie had a checkered green bonnet, and why a parent or Nanny or responsible grownup didn’t hurry up to check on the child or bring a little parasol to shield her unprotected skin from the sun. Where was a loving person to fuss over this little one’s play as mothers often do? But no one came, and still Maggie played—on and on—full through a day that never seemed to change or end. She was happy, content, focused and resolute in a quiet way, almost abnormal for one so young.
I could not hear the song in her heart. I tried to listen, to find her sounds, but after an undeterminable time had elapsed, I became unsettled, restless, and impatient with her quiet repetitions. It was screamingly boring—yet I couldn’t break away. What warp had opened to enclose us together as I watched her sit so silently beside the sea, seeming to ignore its murmuring music? My heart cried out, “God—if You’re real, help!”
Then, as if in answer, Maggie began to hum—soft sounds that caught the murmurs of the sea— the whispers of moving waters. She hummed and hummed until she broke forth into melody— a song too surreal for a child’s vocal chords. My gaze lifted from her to look out over the endless blue above the waters and see what might portend.
Quite near, and I could count them, were— one, two, three, four, five white beings— translucent. Some were wisps, some slightly more opaque than others, all with wings, not wide spread, but lifted up, as if hovering, watching, blessing. They were poised, ready to move, yet unmoving— caught by time in Maggie’s moment—if even time’s categories could apply to this vision of realities from beyond known oceans and sands.
And now, in harmony with her music, she seemed to raise each portion of sand higher in the same unvaryingly graceful arcs, now holding her open palm to the heavens before releasing grains to the earth.
I was restless, no longer diverted by the music. A resistance, an opposition rose up. I wanted to fight the interminably frustrating repetition. I wanted to scream at the child, to cry out, to curb her, change her, divert her, stop her. Medication came to mind. If only I could slip her a pill. Then she would break her endless cycle of offerings and rest her hand; surely then she’d rest from lifting palm full after palm full of sand toward the sky; she’d be glad to stop those endless streams of sparkles sifting down to earth.
Has I been hypnotized by my immersion in her childlike gaze into the light upon the falling grains? She appeared to be captured, or was it captivated? and held by the light.
I was so intent, so distracted by my reaction, and so full of offense and struggle over this child, that I didn’t notice when or how a green hat appeared on her head. I didn’t see how far off in the distance the blues above were continuing to deepen. I didn’t notice that the winged beings had moved, or that the skies were now contained within a vast, visibly limitless room. And only in retrospect do I recall that I continued to watch the child and her play even as I saw the white clad forms in flowing dress almost imperceptibly begin to glide away, fading between the sea and sky until they were lost to sight.
In confessional truth, I was blinded by my conflict over the peace and beauty of the experience and an inner rage at the child who would not tire of her play. I wanted her to throw sand into the air or dump a handful to the ground, or just once bring her arm down with an ordinary jerk and push the sand around and make a sand cake—but she didn’t.
I tried to think her into building a castle, or into getting a bit of water to moisten her offering, or digging a hole, or drawing a circle with her finger. I pictured her burying her legs in the sand? Oh, the thoughts of what I wanted her do filled me. My mind focused in persistent determination to break her reverie, destroy her placid joy. But she paid me no heed and continued on.
I was too fixated on my own thoughts to fully register what was happening when finally I saw her stand, a child no more. Perhaps I was in denial, unwilling to admit the moment, furious that she did not remain until I could change her. I barely noticed the graceful young woman walking away from me on a golden path that stretched far out between the blues of sea and sky.
Looking back, now that my emotions have calmed, I clearly recall back the picture imprinted on my sight. The child was definitely gone and a young woman was walking away from me—towards the hardly visible tall double doors at the far end of the almost unimaginably vast room. I also know now that my sight had changed. No merely human eye or mind could neurologically process the scene before my eyes.
It was a walled in space, full of light, without one orb or light source anywhere—a room within four walls that fixed the four corners of the sky across a ceiling that extended over oceans and oceans of water below.
A golden path led straight toward those doors. It rested, sparkled and shimmered like rays of lightening cast upon the surface of unfathomable depths of the sea. This narrow strip of traversable land that led far across the paradoxically endless yet enclosed sea was alive with light too brilliant for human eyes. The light opened before me, inviting me to step out upon the waters.
Now, to my rational mind, this was a mystery— a path of sand? golden? — over the waters? And fear grew in my heart because I knew that if I once stepped out upon the path there’d be no turning back. I knew that golden path headed somewhere beyond this vast blue room of seas and skies. It led straight over deep waters toward the doors, the place where this room ended, and another place began.
As I watched Maggie disappear into the distance, the path itself began to change before my eyes—faster than the fast-forward on our wide-screen TV. I sensed, or did I see it, as it suddenly collapsed into a great abyss? Or was the bottomless chasm only a ravine? Or a gentle valley with a singing brook and grassy banks, low enough to step across? Now was it a moat, with a bridge? Or is it a dark river, or merely a different path, one of dirt now, like a woodland path in a country park? Or was there nothing at all? Just a grassy back yard and a sandbox.
With one set of eyes I looked toward Maggie’s sandbox, empty now, and with another I tried to see into the space I’d so quickly left. Had I dozed off for a moment or two? Asleep or awake, I knew that setting out upon the journey between the sand box and those double doors was up to me. And I knew that despite my fears and hesitations I’d already said an inner yes to walk down that path across deep waters.
A rush of vulnerability rose to cover me because watching Maggie had led me to understand that those doors opened only to children, only children like Maggie, who can, with an unselfconscious wholeness, trustingly keep to their play. Every self-fulfiling vein in my body wanted to run back, run away from the dream, run to find a little sandbox to call my own and to plop right down in the middle of it and lift my fistfuls of sand on high and pour them out. But I knew the Lord would not receive my offering.
With emerging wakefulness to the day, I saw that I was a grown up, not a child. I could not choose my path, but must walk the one before me, trustingly.
Grateful that my anger and frustration were gone, I determined to walk on. Recalling duties in the office and kitchen, I walked into my day. With every step my longings grew. With fresh keenness, I felt the closed doors within my heart, doors I’d closed to avoid rejection, misunderstanding and disappointment. I felt the inadequacy of my choices to cope: my strategies to look good, to divert, to vacillate, to distract, to achieve, to help and please and to hide.
Outside the sandbox now, I longed to rest a bit, to sit down in the middle of my path. So I did. It held me up above deep waters. I began to gather the dust and grains of dirt within me and to find dust and dirt to pick around me. I filled my hands let the grains slip through my fingertips. And I did it again and again. Sometimes, when the grays and muddy hues caught the light, I’d see a golden grain or two to lift in offering. As best I could, I poured out time’s libation to a God I could not see.
Looking back, I’m convinced that my hours watching Maggie were not a surreal dream. You see, it changed me. I’ve gradually come to trust that if I keep at it long enough and offer my handfuls honestly enough, my dust, my grains of sand, will fall to the ground and the grains of God’s love within me will catch the light and turn to gold. Then I will walk firmly over the waters upon my own sun-warmed golden path. Writing this today, I smile at the certain hope of joining Maggie behind those doors to another realm in the fullness of whatever Jesus meant when He said,
Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. Matthew 19:14
Post Script: “A Dream” fits into Days of Beauty, Days of Grace because the first draft was written on a conclusive day about fifteen years ago. I’d been writing morning pages (a la Julia Cameron) for months. I’d filled page after page in futile attempts to sort out a tangle with former friends who were stonewalling us. They were two couples we loved. Alcohol and deception had changed and confused our personal and business relationships with them. After much prayer, self seeking and counsel, we’d confronted our friends and offered to pay for rehab for one. They turned on us and refused to talk about it; healing our broken relationship became impossible. On journal entry after entry I rehashed key events trying to figure out what went awry. Lots was involved; my husband and I clearly contributed to the circumstances that led to our disappointment and loss.
The morning I wrote “A Dream,” God spoke to me about moving on. I closed the journal and metaphorically got out of my sandbox. I quit all my futile attempts to sort out right from wrong, healthy from unhealthy, and truth from lies. I put the situation into God’s hands and did my best to let go. The golden thread, the glistening light upon the sand running through Maggie’s fingers and mine, was the abiding flow of God’s mercy and forgiveness waiting for us and shining on all that is child-like enough to trust our flow of time, events and relationships to Him.
