Fading

Today I came to the ultimate realization that I do not like reality.  I love fantasy much better that reality any day....Whoa!!!! Hold on there before you explode at me, and try to catch my meaning. I'm not talking about some trash that would have me fantasizing over another woman. If I read of a relationship in which there is perfection, I merely know that there are things to strive for in my own relationships; the answer is never: replace your wife. I have lived the lie that living in fantasy and being overly drawn to its more dangerous sides...therein are only lies and death...(ominous sounding....duh duh duh)
 
That being said: I love fantasy, but I very much love the magic and mystery. I get drawn up in these characters who find that or live in a world that is not what it seems. That there is magic swirling around them and they get caught up in its throes. Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Susan, Eustace, and Jill; Harry, Ron, Hermoine; Edward and Bella; Drizzt, Tanis, Raistlin, Neo, and so many others...they live where I would most long to...where magic is possible. Honestly, it makes my life look ordinary, and I hate that. I hate being ordinary...I'm mostly like everyone else...I procrastinate, go to work, sleep in, watch my kids, hang out with friends, love my family, do the chores over and over, worry about bills and money and everything else....it just seems so endless...I hate ordinary...I long for magic and adventure...to find that there is a whole other world out there of talking animals, wizards, even monsters. I read the Bible and it just gets worse for me. Littered through its pages are stories of healing, plague, miraculous defeats, clouds of fire, the ground swallowing people whole, angels, unclean spirits...like a whole other world is present in conjunction with ours. But do I see it? No...I so I sit and "live" and wait. I feel ordinary..not powerful or having any mystery around me... I feel my senses dull and aching...I long so desperately for more...

Someone at this point would remind me that all the people that these thing happened to were special people. It's not like it happened or happens to everyone. God only spoke to a few. There's usually a whole world of people who are oblivious to the truth of this other world...well thanks, but no thanks! Am I doomed to be that? To have a world of mystery so close but I can never touch or perceive it? I long so desperately to interact with it, to see if I fit there to..maybe just to see it, but I never am able because I'm just ordinary. I don't want to just wait until I die to see this other place that's promised me...some people talk like it's here and now and I so desperately want in on the mystery. I want to taste, touch, and interact...not just imagine.

But then...ah then...I'm reminded that I have, on rare occasions seen things that I cannot explain. I have seen the wonder and magic and mystery when a magical community comes together - in it there's healing and refreshing, even if we don't get all the answers. I've seen people healed. I know those who have come into contact with darker things. I know what it's like to pick my head up and realize that I'm on the verge of waking up...that maybe this world, this life is a sort of dream. I've seen others wake up and heard clear calls to wake even more people. I feel like I've known things that I shouldn't or even been told things in dreams...but then it fades...

Clarity is so hard to come by, friends...it seems that it only enters our minds for a short while...and then we can see so clearly. We understand the mystery and what it's all about. Those of you that have awakened, if only briefly, know what I'm talking about. And after it's all over, sometimes we drift off and wonder if that reality wasn't just the dream and our normal lives are all there was all along... it fades so fast..like the way you can so quickly forget the voice of a loved one that you've lost...you would know if they spoke again, but you can hear it no longer...so elusive...but oh, how I wish they'd speak again...

And so I wait...here with my fantasy and reality; sometimes not knowing which is which. I know that true reality is out there, waiting to be awakened (or us awakened to it, if you prefer), and I, for one, am waiting expectantly. I know what happens when the dead wake up and rise...I've read the promises and seen glimpses of of it...oh how I long for it again...like nothing else I can imagine...when, oh when will Narnia come into our lives again and sweep us up in it's story...I hope it's not long now...like hope rising...or even a lark ascending...

Thanks (all of you who'll never read my thoughts) for trying to remember the glimpse with me. I know I can't describe it for it's too hazy now...but I know you understand...let's pray it comes again soon...that Aslan will wake us and send us to rouse others...