Michael Gailey's Blog

What happens when you “lose” your passport in the Philippines

I don’t suppose this post will be very helpful to someone who actually needs this information. It’s too late by then and you couldn’t look for this post, since your laptop has just been stolen; however, I offer it as an explanation of the tardiness of this month’s blog post… and for whatever amusement it may offer.

I was attending a trade show in Manila this month, working on my laptop in the booth when a representative of the US embassy arrived for a chat. I closed my laptop and slid it into my case and turned around to converse with the embassy officer. Within 2 minutes, I turned to reach for my computer and it was gone! Case and all… passport, all sorts of accessories… it took only a moment for it to sink in. The booth was not large and there was no explanation for it’s sudden disappearance other than the intervention of an opportunistic thief.  No one saw anything.

Not one to dwell on spilt milk, I turned my attention to replacement strategies. First, I had to get a new passport — pronto!  Then an exit stamp so I could leave the Philippines; then a new visa to enter the next country on my itinerary, China; then a new visa so I could return to my base in Viet Nam.

The passport replacement was the easiest feat and the American embassy in Manila was reasonably accommodating (though they did make me come back the next morning to begin the process causing a one-day delay. The next day, I showed up in the morning, showed my driver’s license, was directed to a photo booth onsite, paid my fee, and was told to return at 1:00 pm to pick up my emergency passport, which I have to replace within one year (I can apply the fee to the new passport, a nice touch). And, helpfully, I was provided with a map to the Philippines Department of Immigration to get an exit stamp so I could leave the country.

Getting my Philippines exit stamp was where the fun started. I began at the Information Desk, where I was directed to window 6.  After a short wait in line, I explained what I needed and was given a form to fill out and asked for a copy of my new passport. “I don’t have a copy of it. Here it is you can see it.”

“You must provide a copy of it,” she maintained.

“OK, where can I get a copy made?” She pointed to a man standing next to a copy machine across the room. What astonishing luck! For only a few pesos, he made a copy of my passport and I was on my way.

Next, I was directed to window 8 for payment. I handed the clerk the documents that I had; she looked through them, made some notes, took my money, handed the papers back to me, and told me to go back to the Information Desk. Back at the Information Desk, I again explained that I needed an exit stamp in my new emergency passport.

“Where is you folder?” I was asked.

“I don’t have a folder.” I replied.

“You must have a long folder.”

“Where can I get one?”

“Over there,” she gestured across the room. On the other side of the waiting room was a “store,” whose sole product was manila folders. I bought one  for 20 pesos and returned.

“Where is your clasp?” inquired the clerk impatiently.

“I don’t have a clasp,” I replied.

“You must have a clasp so I can fasten your papers,” she informed me.

“Where can I get a clasp?” She again gestured to the store across the room. Apparently, they sell two products at this store.  Seeing my obvious dismay, she changed her mind and decided to punch the holes in the folder herself and supplied a clasp from her desk drawer. She then looked over her shoulder into a small room staffed with four people who were all busy. She directed me to sit down and wait.  So I did.

After awhile, I noticed that people were coming and going from the small room at random. There was no numbering system and the woman who told me to sit had walked away. Not wanting to spend the rest of the day there, I walked up to the desk, papers in hand, to see if I could gain admittance to the back room — I had no idea what I would do if this worked — but it seemed the next step.  It worked! I made it to the first desk (which had a leg cut off since it was actually protruding into a stairway). There was nowhere to sit, so I stood waiting for a young man to examine my papers and ask me what I needed. I explained again.  He wrote: See Larry, room 306 on a post-it note and said, “Third floor.”

I was making progress!  A few flights of stairs later, I was at room 306, but Larry had gone home for the day.  “Who does the work Larry does when Larry is not here?” I inquired.  A woman took my papers and kept them.  “You need to go to ‘Receiving,’ window 21 on the first floor.  OK.  back down stairs.  Not sure what happens at receiving.

Upon reaching the front of the line at window 21, “What do you want?” the clerk asked.  I explained. “Where are your papers?”

“The woman on the third floor kept them,” I replied. The next fifteen minutes elapsed as numerous people searched for my papers.

Finally, the clerk asked, “What window did you start at?” I told him, “Window 6.”

“Go there,” he suggested.  I left window 21, but I decided to go back up to the third floor where I last saw my papers — why would window 6 have my papers? Arriving back at room 306, the woman who kept my papers informed me that I needed to take my papers with me to window 21. Ahhh, now we’re getting somewhere!

Back at window 21, I cut to the front of the line (by then I was beginning to understand their system). The clerk recognized me and took my papers and date stamped them, adding his initials. OK, back to room 306! Now that my papers had been properly “received,” I thought I was home free.  Wrong. The woman took my papers into another room and soon returned saying that I needed an affidavit. “What sort of affidavit?” I asked, “I can write an affidavit,” I said confidently.

“No, no, this must be done by a lawyer!” she proclaimed.

“Ok,” where can I find a lawyer to do this right now?” I asked.

“See the security guard on the first floor,” she answered, rolling her eyes, obviously realizing that it was past closing time, and offering me this information was going to delay her going home.  The security guard at the front door knew exactly what I needed and made a quick phone call.

In a few moments, a casual looking fellow arrived asking, “You need an affidavit?” I followed him and at his urging we ran through the streets in order to make it back before the staff went home. We took a left down an alley and arrived at an outdoor office with a shed roof and four secretaries sitting at computers typing out affidavits. For only 300 pesos, I soon had a very professional-looking affidavit stating that my passport had been stolen, signed and stamped by an attorney.

I raced back to room 306 on the third floor and found my clerk still waiting for me.  She again took my papers to the mysterious back room where a someone with great authority reviewed my papers and pronounced them properly executed.  My clerk then stamped my passport and wrote a note in it — mission accomplished!

Actually, the whole process was not difficult, just inefficient. The place was staffed with a lot of people, but lacking clear procedures & systemization, and with a bit of opportunistic entrepreneurialism going on. What could have taken five minutes took hours, but that’s the nature of bureaucracy, isn’t it? On the positive side, the people I encountered all along the way were pleasant, some even cheerful, and no one deliberately tried to make it more difficult for no apparent reason (making a few extra pesos qualifies as a reason). What I find truly galling are bureaucrats on a power trip, which I have encountered at some American embassies (but not in the Philippines).

Anyway, thinking on the bright side of things, I’ll be employing more drastic measures to safeguard my belongings at trade shows from now on and I’m familiar with the drill of losing one’s identity papers in a foreign country.

 

Shameless

I recently pondered the Bible passage about the “sinful” woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume prior to his burial (Luke 7:36-50).  That passage has troubled me for years.  It is so intimate, so embarrassing, so scandalous — I get red-faced just reading it!  

Luke 7:36-50The Message (MSG)

Anointing His Feet

One of the Pharisees asked him over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down at the dinner table. Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood at his feet, weeping, raining tears on his feet. Letting down her hair, she dried his feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfume. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man was the prophet I thought he was, he would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over him.”

Jesus said to him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Oh? Tell me.”

“Two men were in debt to a banker. One owed five hundred silver pieces, the other fifty. Neither of them could pay up, and so the banker canceled both debts. Which of the two would be more grateful?”

Simon answered, “I suppose the one who was forgiven the most.”

“That’s right,” said Jesus. Then turning to the woman, but speaking to Simon, he said, “Do you see this woman? I came to your home; you provided no water for my feet, but she rained tears on my feet and dried them with her hair. You gave me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn’t quit kissing my feet. You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed my feet with perfume. Impressive, isn’t it? She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful. If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.”

Then he spoke to her: “I forgive your sins.”

That set the dinner guests talking behind his back: “Who does he think he is, forgiving sins!”

He ignored them and said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

The Message (MSG)

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

What was she thinking, going into the Pharisee’s house to do such a thing to Jesus in front of them all?  She was a known sinner!  Certainly, she could hear them talking about her — didn’t she feel embarrassed?  Wasn’t this whole scene over-the-top without dignity, even shameful?  

I wasn’t much bothered by the fact that Jesus embraced her (though it surprised me and everyone else in the room).  What bothered me was that I wanted a piece of it — that extraordinary love, that overflowing forgiveness.  But, I could not imagine how to get there.  I could not kiss feet and dry them with my hair or any such thing.  As a man, I felt confused, but I wanted to understand something deeper about this passage.

Then I realized what she really did.  She overcame shame.  With an urging from the Holy Spirit to do this deed, even before a disapproving crowd, she did it with all her heart, and without regard to what anyone might think of her.  As the onlookers whispered among themselves disapprovingly and Jesus remained silent, she continued on.  I’m sure everyone there was offended — except Jesus.  He liked it.  He approved. In an extraordinary way.

The Pharisee noted that she was a sinful woman, but I wondered would a woman who was not sinful even consider such a thing?  I don’t think so.  I even asked my daughters if they would do it as an object lesson in a classroom, “No way, not for love or money, impossible, are you crazy?”  The embarrassment and humiliation would be unbearable.

To be shameless is usually not a good thing.  But in this case, in the case of loving Jesus, to be shameless is an essential thing.  How many times are we told not to be ashamed of the gospel, the cross, much less of Jesus Christ or our love for him?  The verse that says if we deny him before men, then he would deny us before the Father, never seemed particularly challenging to me.  Confronted by a savage with a choice between beheading or denying Jesus, I think I would choose Jesus, but probably more out of outrage and refusal to submit to evil than for my love of Jesus.  Peter’s struggle, frankly, seems the more difficult to me, “denying” (or not acknowledging my love for) the Lord out of fear, embarrassment, confusion, insecurity before men — shame often pulls us up short of fully embracing Jesus.  And he wants us to love him as he loves us — demonstratively, recklessly, with abandon.  

As the Holy Spirit searched for the one who was to anoint Jesus for his burial, he, at last, found a woman, a sinful woman, willing to do the deed, desperate enough, shameless enough.  Perhaps, because of her past, she was already beyond caring about her reputation or her personal dignity, ready to embrace Jesus shamelessly, ready to kiss and wash his dirty feet with her tears and dry them with her hair while the center of attention, before scornful eyes. That was pretty shameless!

But, how shameless was Jesus’ love?  Jesus bore our shame and He endured the punishment: separation from Father (abandonment).  He was falsely accused (which is worse that a real accusation — you can’t honestly confess!); He was abused, beaten, mocked, tormented, humiliated, stripped, and hung naked on the cross, quivering in pain and shivering with cold — in front of His own mother —  the son of God, bruised, bloodied, powerless, and defeated.  Then He cried out, “Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani!”  That’s the part that nails it.  Father turned His back on Jesus, as He bore all of our sin, all of our shame.  That’s the price Jesus paid for us all.  And that’s a price that we never have to pay because of what He did.  That’s why he could say, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Who was more shameless in their love? Mary, the sinful woman who endured public humiliation to anoint Jesus’ with perfume or Jesus? There’s no real comparison, is there?

As I began to explore this passage and the meaning it had for me, I searched for artistic interpretations of the scene and collected them.  Then I remembered a song, titled “Shameless” written by Billy Joel, and made popular by Garth Brooks.  When I put the song with the pictures, I understood.

Something wonderful happened on the Way to Her Mom’s Second Burial

In parts of SE Asia and Southern China, there is a cultural tradition of second burial, where the bodies of deceased family members are exhumed after a couple of years, the bones placed in an ossuary and reinterred in a family burial plot. My wife, Giao, usually does not prepare me well for surprises and this was no exception; she informed me the day of the ceremony that she would need my support as they would be handling both her father and sister at the same time since they had died only a month apart. Of course, I immediately agreed to do whatever she needed me to do and made myself available. She informed me that the deed must be done after sunset and that the bones must be reburied before midnight, so we would be spending the evening in a graveyard.

At dusk, I found myself at the cemetery. While a dozen or so relatives huddled in small groups talking somberly, I was assigned to oversee the digging up of my wife’s sister Tuyet’s grave. The surrealness of it all was accentuated by my inability to banish Randy Travis’ country western hit song, “Diggin’ up Bones” from my mind.

As they plucked Tuyet’s bones from the soggy grave by lantern light, the nervous chatter in my mind picked up, as I realized that I’d never before actually seen the bones of someone I knew and I was greatly discomfited. Suddenly, my seven year old daughter HP’s voice broke through my thoughts, “Daddy, are those mommy’s bones?” I felt a sudden panic, wondering if she should be seeing any of this — shouldn’t she be with the other relatives? I wondered if this was some kind of child abuse — where is my wife? Help! But there was nothing I could do — HP was already standing there, looking at the bones, asking me about her mother’s remains. “Yes, I think so,” I stammered, quickly leading her back to the group of relatives — away from the disturbing bones.

When I returned the attendants were already cleaning the bones with stiff brushes and water jets, ridding them of any clinging bits of hair and remnants of decayed flesh. Then they dried the bones and reverentially placed then in their proper positions in the ossuary, swaddling them in a red silk robe with gold trim, and adorning the skull with a silk cap. The man knew he was handling the bones of a young woman and he paused running his fingers over the cancer scarred pelvic bone sadly shaking his head. It was all done with the utmost care and respect.

We had an hour long bus ride to the final burial plot. Tuyet’s bones lay at my feet and HP sat in my lap. I had little leg room and felt cramped, so I raised my foot to rest it on the bone box, but realized my mistake before actually touching it — I flushed at the thought that I had almost rested my feet on someone’s bones! HP’s voice again interrupted my thoughts, “Daddy, is mommy in Heaven now?” With Tuyet’s bones at our feet, this seemed a very poignant question.

“Yes, HP, your mom knew about Jesus and I believe she accepted him as her savior, so she is in Heaven now,” I said with a lump in my throat.

“Daddy, where is heaven, and where is Hell?” She didn’t need a theological explanation, I thought — she wants to know where her mom is. I silently prayed that I would say the right thing.

“Well, Baby, Heaven and Hell are not like places we can drive or fly to, like Hanoi, or Da Nang or Ho Chi Minh City. You know when you feel safe and secure and full of joy and happiness?” She nodded. “Well, that’s what Heaven is like. And you know when you feel afraid and guilty and ashamed?” Another nod, looking downward. “I think that’s what Hell is like.”

She thought about that for a moment and then said, “Daddy, sometimes mommy makes me feel like Heaven and sometimes she makes me feel like Hell.”

I smiled at this, remembering her sometimes stern mother. I felt I needed to respond to her, so I said, “I think that’s because mommy wanted to give you little taste of Heaven so you would WANT to go there — and a little taste of Hell so you would NOT WANT to go there.”

That seemed to satisfy her completely (to my great relief). She then flashed me a toothy smile and said, “Daddy, you always make me feel like Heaven.” With that she nuzzled her face into my chest and instantly fell asleep.

I often think back on that day.  I could have easily missed that precious moment.  I didn’t want to go there; I didn’t want to be there.  If I could have thought of an escape, I probably would have taken it, but, thankfully, I didn’t — I rode it out. And there, in the midst of that strange and uncomfortable circumstance, I found a beautiful memory that I could keep in my heart forever.  It’s like a delicate flower that never dies or withers or gets lost, and it never fails to bring a tear to my eye — it’s a like a bitter-sweet taste of Heaven on Earth; I cherish it, and I’m so thankful that I did not turn away or try to escape.  Now, I realize that such flowers are indeed rare and are only to be found in such places, so I try my best to keep my eyes and ears open and not turn my face away, even when life becomes difficult or my circumstances unpleasant. It seems that it’s God’s practice not to leave His gems in plain sight, but to hide them where only the intrepid can find them.

 

THE FIRE WITHIN Featured on George MacDonald Website

Onesimus
February 25, 2016

One of our objectives at The Works of George MacDonald is to showcase writing, art, and music inspired by the Scotsman. In this post, Michael Gailey tells us about how he discovered MacDonald, and the novel Lilith and other of MacDonald’s works inspired.  

I discovered MacDonald, like many, through C.S. Lewis in my early twenties.  The first works I read were his short stories, beginning with The Gray Wolf.  A few paragraphs in I realized that I was reading a Christian author’s story of a werewolf — a story that invoked pity more than fear — and a penetrating sense of the cold dampness and misery of a broken soul.  I was shaking as I read it.  No author had ever affected me so, and I knew what Lewis meant by the “baptism of my imagination.”  PHANTASTES was next, and then LILITH.  I had not yet lived long enough to understand either, but reading them stirred in me a longing to capture just a glimpse of what MacDonald had seen — my second-hand feelings from reading his stories were not enough to satisfy the thirst he had awakened.  My book is not an academic criticism of MacDonald’s writing, nor a deconstruction, analysis, and repackaging of MacDonald’s themes.  It seemed to me that MacDonald opened doors, peered into them, and then entered — and I followed him.  Some rooms he did not venture far into (or if he did, he did not describe well what he saw) — those were the most curious rooms to me.

But my life was busy and I had my wife and children to provide for.  I left off reading MacDonald and wondering about his mysticism and pursued a career — a droll and tedious occupation.  And then something happened to me, which I won’t elaborate on here, but it changed me. I began to dream both night and day.  Clear intuition, before an absent faculty, became the norm and guided me through my daily tasks leaving me time to ponder. I reveled in thought, exploring the Dichotomy of Passion and Reason (Paul’s apt description of the law of his flesh that makes war against the law of his mind); The Kingdom of God — who are the slaves, hirelings, servants, brothers, friends, and heirs? The Seven Dimensions and the Ten Senses, which I had discovered in two cryptic passages in MacDonald’s LILITH and was now beginning to understand — not as metaphors, but as a distinct paradigm of spiritual perception; yes, second sight, but also second hearing (which MacDonald features in THE PORTENT), second smell, second taste and second touch as well! I had a good friend, an attorney, with a brilliant mind and a near photographic memory (he had memorized the Bible and could recite any passage on call) and we spent hours in intense discussion; my intuition and his intellect playfully sparring. It was a very exciting time!

Then I had a dream that stopped me cold; I thrashed on my bed and woke in terror as I tried to escape the nightmare. Upon waking the dream did not fade as usual, but kept replaying whenever my mind was not otherwise occupied.  Here is the dream:

No one had ever seen the top of the mountain, the explanation being it was always shrouded in cloud and mist. In ancient times a few men ventured to climb the mountain, but none had ever returned.  (Whether they had been consumed by ravening wolves going to, or coming back; or whether they had been lost on the mountain’s face, no one could say.) This seemed to me a curious fact, and I formed a resolve to climb the mountain myself for two reasons: first, I simply wanted to be above the obscuring mists, where vision was clear; and second, I wanted to see what it was the mists obscured — namely, the top of the mountain.

To this end I set out with a companion. When we reached the mountain’s base, we felt it best to lighten our loads by leaving behind all unnecessary items. The going was quite difficult due to the steep grade, and the pathless, rocky terrain.

When we reached the height of the mountain where the clouds began, the lack of visibility became a real problem. We could see no more than a few feet in front of us and before long our slow progress halted altogether. It appeared we had come up against a sheer cliff. How high it was I couldn’t guess. The cliff was, by all appearances, unscalable without proper equipment (which we did not have), and other routes seemed an even less possible alternative.

I examined the face of the cliff minutely. I placed my body flat against it, and searched for a handhold with my fingers. Lo and behold, I found one! (Though no such hold was visible to the naked eye.) Groping with my other hand, I found another hold a little higher up. I discovered I was able to find footholds in similar fashion. Greatly encouraged by my initial success, I began scaling the cliff using nothing but my bare hands and my wits. Before going far, I called down to my companion to join me, and explained to him the technique which made the ascent possible.  He was soon in tow, and, although we made good progress, night had fallen a goodly time before we reached the top. Fortunately, we soon found ourselves above the cloud level and bathed in light from a nearly full moon and countless stars.

As I reached the top of the cliff, I discovered the natural cut of the rock was altered. Indeed, the very top of the wall was fashioned into the shape of a horse, which must be mounted and dismounted before going any farther. Upon mounting the stony steed, I found it formed a battlement; beyond was a courtyard where I beheld a grisly scene that made me shudder from head to toe. Lying in all manner of unnatural positions were scores of corpses of men. I saw none were newly dead; still I was quite shaken, and I whispered to my companion to remain silent, for I did not know whether I witnessed the scene of an ancient battle, or whether this was the gruesome fate of those who reached the top of the cliff. I noticed though all were ancient, their dress varied greatly.  Some were clad as great warriors and fighting men, others were robed in simple cloth as wise men.  Clearly, they had all suffered the same fate: a spear thrust into the face.

The tone of the dream was so ominous and foreboding I could only think it a warning, but a warning of what?  For days I could think of nothing else.  I prayed.  I fasted.  Clueless and at wit’s end, I let my Bible fall open and read the passage before me:

The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses: Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.

— Nahum 3.

This was the answer to the dream —  I knew it — it described the scene in my dream exactly!  But, who was this wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts? At the time, I did not read commentaries or ask anyone’s opinion.  I searched the Bible for harlots and I found them — and the Mother of Harlots too.  I knew who the Father of Lies was, but who was Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, the great seductress?  Lilith.

There are many sources available to study and reflect on Lilith; here are a couple of interesting quotes that lover’s of the Inklings may recognize:

“’… her they called Lilith.  And she was one of the Jinn.  and on the other she come of the giants.  No, no, there isn’t a real drop of human blood in the Witch.”

“That’s why she’s bad all through, Mr. Beaver,’ said Mr.s Beaver.”

— C.S. Lewis, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

“… But when the sun of the mountain struck on the people of illusion it struck on all their past lives and they lived at last in the starvation they had sought. Religion or art, civic sense or sensual desire, or whatever had drugged the spirit with its own deceit, had been drawn from them; they stared famished at the dry breasts of the ancient witch.”

— Charles Williams, Descent into Hell

Lewis depicts her seductive enslavement technique through the addictive turkish delight given to Edmund, and Williams expands her methods of operation to include any sort of compulsive deceit.  But MacDonald is different — he is the only one who regards her with compassion — and so perhaps he sees her more intimately.  I write as though she is not a mythical archetype but a living spirit, and perhaps she is — I really don’t know.  To even consider such a being, whatever she is, requires a different paradigm, a new wineskin, as Jesus said, and I found such a paradigm in MacDonald’s hint about the seven dimensions.

Lilith is a central theme in THE FIRE WITHIN, and I develop The Seven Dimensions and the Ten Senses as well as a means of imagining such a horror.  Like MacDonald, I take a closer, more intimate look at Lilith, but unlike MacDonald, in the end, I do not see her redemption; rather, I come to Lewis’ conclusion: “… she’s bad all through.”

Attached is a chapter from the middle of the book where the spirit makes an appearance.  It is the most explicit chapter, called Apples of Sodom (this does not refer to homosexuality, but a plant described by Josephus as “externally of fair appearance, but turning to smoke and ashes when plucked with the hands.”)  This chapter was also a dream.  Actually, several of the chapters are dreams.  I wrote them down as I experienced them and later realized that together they formed a story if I rearranged the sequential order.  So, was born THE FIRE WITHIN.

Link to worksofmacdonald.com

Buy THE FIRE WITHIN on Amazon

The Seven Dimensions

In physics, determining how many dimensions there  are requires conjecture beyond the fourth. String theory suggests there are at least ten dimensions, but I’ve never found those kinds of dimensions compelling — not in a way that would make me want to visit them anyway.

Spiritual dimensions are a different ball game.  Unlike the supposed higher dimensions of theoretical physics, I think the spiritual dimensions are highly relevant to us all. What would it be like to traverse other dimensions — or do we already, unaware? There are many accounts of people who have purportedly done so from antiquity to this present day. Don’t we often talk about a “living hell” and didn’t Jesus declare that, “the Kingdom of God (Heaven) is within you?” Are those merely metaphors, or is there some sort of dimensional reality to them? Few among us have not experienced uncomfortable challenges to our comfortable paradigms; are we indeed experiencing overlapping dimensions?

I use a lot of illustrations from the Bible.  I know this may turn off some people in this day and age, but it shouldn’t. While sermonizing can certainly leave some readers cold, a more rich and fascinating treasure of mystical stories and wisdom cannot be found.  The ancients who recorded these stories were trying to tell us very important things about the Universe. We should not, in any case, toss the infant out with the cleansing fluid.

Starting with what’s familiar let’s consider the dimensions of TIME and SPACE first – they are what we call the third and fourth dimensions.  SPACE has length, height and width. In the Bible this dimension is referred to as the “flesh” or the “world.”  It is the realm of brute beasts, beings without nobler inclinations, whose primary concern is survival and satisfying carnal desires, thus is the the dimension associated with PASSION. TIME provides a framework in which to consider space — seasons, days, months, years — a clock by which to measure and interact with space — the essence of REASON.

Below the SPACE dimension a two-dimensional realm called Death, Hades or the land of shadows. This is the dimension associated with FEAR.  Interestingly, you’ll often find FEAR, SHADOW and DEATH linked together; for example, consider the 23rd Psalm of David:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:

This is also the realm where ghosts are said to live — two dimensional beings you can put your fist through (if you manage to see one) and who can do you no real harm other than incite terror.

Below DEATH is HELL, a place of darkness, guilt and torment. With only one dimension, it has no physical forms — memory plays the key role, ever recycling regret. Anyone who has experienced a painful trauma that keeps replaying over and over in their head has experienced a taste of the torment of Hell — it is dark and it burns like fire — Oh God, won’t someone put out those flames!

Below HELL is the ABYSS, and at its entrance, the Lake of Fire. It’s the zero dimension, where everything vanishes into nothingness.

Ominously, John records that the 2nd and 1st dimensions will be lost to the zero dimension:

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.  — Rev 20:14

This puzzled me briefly.  How could God do away with the 1st and 2nd dimensions? Are not they the building blocks of the Universe? Apparently not.  It seems God created everything from the top down — literally speaking things into existence.

Going upward from the time-space continuum is the fifth dimension, the dimension of FAITH. Not blind faith — like an ignorant belief in some doctrine or creed — but a kind of understanding of the heart through intuition born of spiritual senses — what I call the Ten Senses.  This is the realm of art and music, of dreams, visions, inspiration, interpretation, and our emotions — not the passions of our flesh, which are confined to the third dimension — the longings of our hearts.

Higher up and further in than FAITH, you will find HOPE, the sixth dimension.  Some people use words “hope” and “faith” interchangeably, but they are quite different.  Faith is following your heart’s desire toward something that you sense with your higher senses. HOPE is stepping beyond all you know in expectation that a need will be met.  It’s the stuff of courage, the boldness it takes to risk a miracle.

Hope is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes strongly, has within him the gift of miracles. — Samuel Smiles

And finally there is Love, at the top of all things, as it should be.

And so there remain Faith, Hope, Love–these three; and of these the greatest is Love.

There seems to be a progression to the dimensions, but they are not without boundaries.  I like the way David describes the journey:

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter until the full light of day.

In THE FIRE WITHIN, I tell a story, and through it introduce a new way of thinking about dimensions, including Heaven and Hell — not as streets paved with gold or pits of fire and brimstone — but as a place where beings reside and deal with life in, below and beyond the physical realm.

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The Fire Within Gets Out

This month I published THE FIRE WITHIN as an ebook on Kindle, soon to be followed by a trade paperback book through Amazon’s CreateSpace.

While fiction, THE FIRE WITHIN explores some serious and usually esoteric topics, primarily related to what is sometimes called spiritual perception.  Other descriptors often used to describe this sort of perception include: mystical, psychic, paranormal, intuitive, and a sixth sense.  I first became interested in the subject as a teenager, wondering if some people do in fact possess unusual powers that transcend the bounds of normalcy.  I knew there were entertainers and frauds who exploit people’s natural curiosity about the unknown for financial gain, but was there really something more to it?  In my own experience, coincidence was just not enough to explain the occasional uncanny insights of myself and others.

In my mid-twenties, I ran across a passage in a book written by George MacDonald in 1895:

“I was in the land of thought—farther in, higher up than the seven dimensions, the ten senses: I think I was where I am—in the heart of God.”

— George MacDonald. “Lilith, a romance.”

The notion that there could be ten senses captivated me.  I’ve heard of a sixth sense, but ten?  What could they be?  How might they work?  And seven dimensions?  How would one even begin to explore such ideas?  I began scouring MacDonald’s writings.  He offered little in the way of clues, but I was still convinced that MacDonald meant something profound by that specific phrase.  C.S. Lewis’ high regard for MacDonald only increased my conviction:

“I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him.”

So began my quest to capture what MacDonald had alluded to: to discover the ten senses! It was slow going at first — more like no going, but then a breakthrough — what if the ten senses was simply a total of our five natural sense, plus a corresponding spiritual sense for each?  The idea was like a spark that ignited a fire in me.  I had already heard of “second sight” — why not a “second” to each of the senses.  While an interesting thought, that’s not much to go on.  Then I began imagining, exploring and analyzing each of the natural senses and what their spiritual counterparts might be.

This is where the fun started.  Before long, I had sketched out a framework for understanding the ten senses.  I also explored the seven dimensions.  MacDonald was right to link them together as they must be inseparable in order to grasp their meanings.  Note that the seven dimensions are not the dimensions of physics, though much insight can be gleaned from comparing the two.  They are rather spiritual dimensions: the Abyss, Hell, Death, Space, Time, Faith, Hope and Love are all dimensions.  (Yes, I know there are eight listed, not seven — the Abyss represents zero.)  Imagining each as a place populated by spirits both human and otherwise is endlessly illuminating.

In a brief article I cannot detail the intriguing concepts — which is why I wrote THE FIRE WITHIN as a story to flesh out the concepts.  Naturally, such senses provide a much wider scope on reality than merely physical senses, so the story is full of perceptions and characters bordering the fringes of understanding.  Another dominant thread in the story deals with a demoness of antiquity named Lilith, which MacDonald titled a book after and C.S. Lewis references in THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA (the White Witch, Lewis says, is descended from Lilith).  There are passages in THE FIRE WITHIN that refer to Lilith’s intrinsic seductivity, which are inappropriate for young readers and may make some adults uncomfortable, but I chose not to mask or sugar coat these elements as MacDonald and Lewis’ did (remember the woman of the Alder in PHANTASTES or Edmond’s seduction and addiction to turkish delight candy in THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE?)

Beyond the casual curiosity concerning the paranormal, THE FIRE WITHIN is about connecting with God.  If there are spiritual senses, then there are also spirits, and a God, and a devil.  These things are impossible to experience with only our physical senses, but they are revealed magnificently through our spiritual senses.  There is no such thing as blind faith; in truth faith has eyes and ears and the other sense organs as well, but they are spiritual in nature and it is essential to grasp this notion to grow spiritually.  Jesus put it like this:

For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

I discovered many references to the ten senses in the Bible.  Eyes to see and ears to hear are obviously not speaking of literal eyes and ears, nor does “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” refer to literally taking a bite out of the divine one; they are much more than metaphors.  I welcome all to join me in discovering more about our spiritual senses.

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