A Whole Man
The other morning my four year old Son walks into my room and tells me He had a dream about me. Really, God, a four year old?
My second born son, the one that desires to be a Priest, dreamt a couple years ago of Vanity Fair pass him by, and felt the sting of it in the dream. Then he saw me sitting down with the bible open before me. I began to play it with my fingers like a piano. He could hear a melody in his dream as He watched me play. I looked at him and told him he could do it too. He awkwardly played a few notes with his knuckles as I cheered him on, then he awoke.
So what’s the deal? Pretty weird. That’s the point. God wants the dreams to impact us to action, that we might press in and understand His will for us. Dreams are not the only way God does this for sure, but in my family it seems that it is the Lord’s mode of communication. My son went on a scripture study program that was built around the New Testament that was more about memory work and familiarity, really get it into your bones type study, saturation until it becomes a unified whole and you become a living epistle. Now He can play with ease, like a fountain that does not need to draw a passage from memory as much as it just flows.
So my four year old comes into my room and says, “Dad I saw you standing on top of a telescope in my dream.” A telescope is used to observe the heavens, that which we couldn’t see with the naked eye. So why was I standing on top of it? Well, if you read my post on surf boards and row boats, I think it is my surf board. The things that I see would be impossible to see without faith, the eyes of the Holy Spirit. To have the faculties of a seer would be impossible without communion; union with Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. To see the world beyond with your spirit is like learning a new language. But the language learned is of heaven. Mind, will, and emotion are not enough.
There are faculties within us which these faculties serve–intuition, communion, conscience. Intuition serves faith, communion serves love, and conscience serves the truth. When Bible meets mind without these three faculties working, we’ll either produce deconstructionists, or Fundamentalists. The truth is heavenly; unless we can reach heaven, we shall be blind to the truth. I’m afraid our will and intellect have become over inflated. To develop a polished man–sophisticated, well-educated–is great even in the formation of priests. But if the spiritual man is not the central focus to one’s development, we shall develop professional Religionists.
I would prefer to listen to a man with an eighth grade education communing with Jesus Christ, than a man of many doctorates that lacked communion. His words will be burned in the fire because they are earthen, while the childlike simplicity of Jesus Christ will fill everyone with joy and love near the simple man.
Now ultimately, I would prefer both a well-developed intellect and a radical communion with God. St. Thomas, the doctor of angels, is a great example of this. We hear much of his intellect. What we don’t hear is much about his childlike innocence before the God he loved that made his brilliant intellect worth listening to at all.
John Paul had a great impact on my conversion. The holy fire in Him burned so hot it consumed his penetrating, insightful mind. So much truth, like a fountain of living water–a brilliant man, complete and whole, a developed mind and spirit, a Pope. Not all of us can shine so bright. Ok, almost none of us. But my point is this, we need the Kingdom of God, for apart from Him we can do nothing, even if we have a list of credentials that says we can.
Once again, blue collar scholar shines forth!