La Renaissance

Personal Vision

I was at daily mass one day and the reading was Matthew 25:31-46 Judgment of Nations about separating the sheep and the goats.
I had this vision in my mind of a great mountain. At the top of the mountain is a huge cloud with a beam of light shooting out of it onto the top of the mountain. Jesus is about 2/3 of the way up on a winding path, with a flock of sheep in single file following faithfully behind him. There are goats everywhere on different crags and cliffs, chewing weeds and sticks, doing their own thing. There are fat goats and feeble ones, there is one trying to go straight up the mountain toward Jesus but slipping on rocks, and in his arms is a half sheep half goat, being transformed by his mercy.
on the side of the mountain there are 3 or 4 goats tumbling down the side of the mountain, with a rock slide above them pushing them to their death below. 

When I started thinking about my own personal conversion and how my friend, when I had told him about my transformation, said "I want what you have but don’t want to have to hit rock bottom to get it"
I realized some months later that we do not in fact hit rock bottom, we get led to the edge of the abyss and make a decision.
At first, starting at Baptism, we are on the narrow path toward the narrow gate (Matthew 7:13). Then some ugly sin comes along…but we don't see it as ugly but appealing or curious, intriguing. We follow it. We follow that gateway sin and begin down the “broad road to destruction.” At first, all is rosy posey, even to those who can see us on this path. They see us "happy" and in a good quality of life. But soon, we become fully blind, and there are thorns and weeds all around us, wolves, spiders and serpents, and those who know us can see this but we cannot. We have gone too far down the figurative rabbit hole. We are now being guided personally by the devil himself, deceived by all his wickedness, snares and lies.

We go, go, go...until eventually he slithers behind us…and we are at the edge. And that is when we see. Suddenly our eyes are opened as we nearly slip and fall off...we see the depths, darkness and doom below. We see the jagged rocks, the hot boiling lava and sin and suffering, pain and anguish…hatred. When we turn around to run, the devil is there with his wicked staff ready to push us over the edge. Frantically we turn back around with nowhere to go, when we look up and see a great dove. A giant dove, soaring in rapidly.
Then we hear a voice. a single word in the wind, a whisper:

Jump. 

again we hear it say, Trust me. Surrender. Jump. 

And at that very moment we make a decision. we take a leap...

A leap of FAITH. 

If we do not take the leap, we plummet into the depths, possibly never to return. But if we jump, that dove lifts us up not just to Jesus but all the way up into that cloud and sets us on fire with that light!
And then we are given a parachute and dropped, slowly back down to reality but back onto that narrow path. We are burning with the fire of God in our hearts, so alive that we were nearly drowned in grace. The slow fall back down is slow giving us time to remember that feeling of God’s closest presence and so that we do not burn the others around us in the world, so that we can learn to control the fire within us and use it for good.

Ecclesiastes 3

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every ^[a]event under heaven—

² A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
³ A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
⁴ A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
⁵ A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
⁶ A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
⁷ A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
⁸ A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.