Dream of: 24 January 1998 "Beneficent Beauty"
A young man, a young woman, and I were fleeing on foot through a war-torn area, somewhere in the Near East, perhaps Israel. Closely pursued by the enemy, we passed through a small war-devastated town. As we hustled through the town, someone gave us some pieces of bread which resembled small white biscuits. Since we were hungry, once we reached the edge of town, we stopped on the side of a small hill to eat the bread. But we decided that before we ate, we should first make a sacrifice. We discussed the matter, using the word "sacrifice" several times to describe what we needed to do, and finally concluded we should "sacrifice" the pieces of bread to God.
Our problem was that none of us knew how to make a sacrifice. Each of us took a piece of the bread and tore it in half, thinking we would use half the bread for the sacrifice. But we were still uncertain what to do. The only thing we could think of was to say something over the bread. When the other two turned to me, as if looking for me to take the lead, I spoke a few words, and finally spoke out spontaneously, "Lord, lift us up out of this hell, so that once more we might see the beneficent beauty of your face."
All the words seemed to just come to me automatically without thinking. I knew my use of the word "hell" was a bit strong, but it seemed true we were in a hell-like situation. The words "beneficent beauty" sounded strange even to me. I wasn't even sure "beneficent" was a word, but I liked the ring of the phrase. I also liked the idea of seeing the Lord's face. Generally, I thought of God in the abstract. But the idea of actually seeing God's face seemed to make sense to me.
The other two seemed satisfied with what I had said. But we were still uncertain what to do with the half of the bread which we were sacrificing. I didn't know whether we should just throw it down on the ground, feed it to a dog, or do something else with it. I did know we couldn't waste a lot of time – we needed to move on.
Copyright 2002 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
