The Psychology of Salvation, Part 8: Our Hands Are Bigger Now

Found 11/28/12 at: http://fionaevemurray.wordpress.com/projects/project-3/

Woke up at 2:30 this morning to break a 29-year, no-vomiting record. (I’m assuming that I vomited when Sherry and I were so wretchedly sick in Nordland in the early '80s.. Not sure of the year, and I might not have even vomited then. I have a way of sitting in misery for the duration.)

Throughout the night I drifted back into consciousness three times in very similar ways. I awoke from dreams where only the thin-slice of the dream’s fading end was remembered. In each one I was looking at a model of the Hebrew sanctuary and said something like, “Lord, they seem to be doing all You have asked.”

His reply was along the lines of, “They are missing the heart of it. They could take it to a deeper place in their lives.”

In each of the three dreams I was viewing the tabernacle from a different angle. On my third awakening, I could only remember two of the perspectives. In the first, I was looking at a model similar to the one at the Israel Museum. In fact, I believe that dream featured Herod’s temple. My perspective was oblique and from the altitude of a small private airplane. I was gazing from the southeast, near the south end of the Mount of Olives.

The second perspective was like seeing the desert tabernacle all laid out on a slope with the furniture exposed. The scale and angle were just as if I were playing a pinball machine and all the furniture were the bumpers and flippers. However, I was not playing; I could see priests officiating appropriately at each station.

I couldn’t remember the third perspective. Then when I awoke a fourth time my memory was restored. In it, the temple and its furniture were all laid out in a flat diagram. I seemed to be seeing it on a page in a textbook.

As soon as I remembered the third perspective, they all made sense to me. 1) The museum model of the temple stood for the central place the worship of Shaddai held in the Hebrew culture, beliefs, and economy. It was a proper view of its pivotal position as God ordained it for the nation. 2) The pinball view of the tabernacle and its furniture signified the physical precision with which the tabernacle was built and the close attention to detail during the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rounds. 3) The textbook diagram was emblematic of a very rational study of the whole system. All perspectives were fascinating, yet God insisted, “There’s more,” and implied that when the “more” is missed we miss the best part.

I felt impressed that I should get back to devotional writing about God’s love as shown in the sanctuary, and that it contains a psychological model of His work for our salvation. Is that what was happening? I don’t know. It could have been my fascination with this study after having let lie dormant for awhile. After all, I had just talked to Brandy’s prayer group hours before the dreams began. So recounting the trip to Jerusalem may have dislodged some sleeping interests. It could have been stimulated by the fever I was fighting off and on, but I didn’t feel emotional or excited, just calm and convinced.

Either way, in the wee small hours I decided that I would return to sanctuary or other devotional writing in the coming days. Then I drifted back to sleep. I woke up a fifth time and this time the perspective seemed to mix the three models. I definitely saw all the pieces and the priests bustling about their service in the tabernacle; I was aware of the temple’s place in the nation’s daily and international life; and I had full appreciation for the logic and the details.

Again, as the brief image faded, I found myself answering a comment God must have just made. I said, “Lord, they are doing it all right.”

Again, He calmly and clearly disagreed, “When they were children, their hands were too small for the big basins, the plates, the censors, the tongs, and all the rest. They had to focus very carefully not to drop something. Now, even though their hands are bigger, they are stuck performing the same routines they have learned so well. Their hands are big enough now to carry this practice into a new chamber in their lives and to make it work seamlessly there, but they aren’t.”

I found this thought to be quite exciting for three reasons: 1) God was using “hands” to stand for both the physical work (a symbol we traditionally keep) but He was also using it for our mind and soul’s ability to “grasp” what is significant. As humans we have invented many titles for ourselves and one is homo fabere which means we are the only species to fabricate things. I’m sure that title has been challenged now by Darwin’s finches and the primates that create termite-fishing sticks. However, we have long believed that our manual dexterity has enriched our exploration of the world around us, fueling more mental activity and inquisitiveness. Our hand’s ability to create what the mind invents gives wings to the mind. Why wouldn’t the hand’s learning of a routine give the mind further thoughts to explore? Why do we sometimes allow the hands to go through the motions day after day and block our minds from abstracting and internalizing what is going on? 2) This statement about the hands seemed to be a particularly Jewish part of the dream. The Jews believe that the head, hand, and soul must stay connected. That’s why the praying Jew’s body is active pacing or rocking while his or her mind and soul interact with God. 3) And finally, the statement points out that our care and attention to detail as we learn things correctly is only a step towards application. When we get stuck on the correct performance of a routine, we display the behaviors of obsessive compulsion. Statement: “We’ve gotta do this!” Question: “Why? What is it adding to our life or understanding?” Answer: “We’ve gotta keep doing this right.”

What I hear as I write this is the added thought, “The temple was glorious before, but it will shine even more brightly. When it is ingested, it will disappear for a time, but then it will burst forth with the light of a life creatively and faithfully lived.”

I wouldn’t be so bold as to say God has told me to write this, but I do know that one way or the other I feel compelled to write it… bit by bit, piece by piece. I need to write faithfully and devotionally for my own soul’s sake.

All of this comes at a somewhat spiritually dry time for me. It’s wonderful being close to family. My wife is lovely. We aren’t in the poorhouse yet despite the diminished income and the cost of maintaining two homes. I am making progress on my studies. But I also feel that my worship times have become more like study than communion. Fewer things are in my control, so I’m grumpier than Ginger has previously experienced. I am suspicious of the builder, the home owners association, the loan company, and maybe even “the stranger that is within my gates.” I state my opinions more emphatically and am readier to battle with alternate viewpoints, than to listen to them and to think compassionately.

So how does one write from a state of communion rather than combativeness? What does devotional obedience mean? I may produce a string of loosely-jointed, rambling pieces, fit for no one else, but me. Still, I will write when, how, and whatever it seems I should write. I made this promise three weeks ago, then I got lost in Scripture study that left little “juice” for my soul. So my supplementary commitment is to let God meander through my house and point out whatever He may. If He wants me to “sit a spell” I will do that, and I won’t move on until He does.