Reflections of Joshua
As I sit here and worship the Lord while I eat this delicious blueberry muffin, I dive into the muffin as love surrounds me. I taste the delicious fruits mixed within its ingredients. I am thankful for the food, shelter and clothing that I have today. As I pray for all who are not with these wonderful gifts, I pray for them all. I pray for my safe journey then I pray for theirs. I taste another bite before I enter my meditation. I go to the third heaven, as I walk in the bride room. She shows me the gorgeous gems that surround me on the walls. The furniture is alive. The earth is alive. The trees touch me as a kiss. I smile because I thought as a child this was nothing but a fairy tale, the figment of my imagination running wild again, and I glow in love for I taste the wonders of a child’s mind as an adult. I laugh and play as though my bones are not aging. I could not expect such a beautiful kingdom. I drink its wines like water sweet and fermented. I am in my altered state, and I feel the outer body experience of heaven on earth. I leave but a moment, before I put the muffin for another bite to my lips. I allow my tongue to taste the sweetness on my throat, I continue to allow the nourishments to go down to my bellow, and I am completely full.
I take the time to think about Joshua, and in his journey as a child he had to be scared. A young man fighting wars of great nations, established countries with wealth, power and esteem. This people of God coming out of the wilderness had their elders die in the pain and suffering of their own doubt. But the children, playing in the promises of God, continue into the giant world of power and wealth. These children, young men and women, following God for shelter, food, clothing and health, enter a land that was made for giants, and only the powerful. These little children, young adults fighting for food, shelter and clothing could not see any other options but to kill like vampires they had to feed. These slaves and peasants looking for a place to rest their head on a bed only knew of desperation and in that desperation they stole to have what they needed. These children wearing their parent’s armor and now must stand their ground for a bite to eat. In their trust, the only knowledge they have is to go to war. They working under the power of child like minds, warring for their meals. Poor babies, scratching for food., they knew only a life of parasites, to live where they were not owners, but keepers after stealing, killing and destroying to preserve their own lives, but they had their God to protect their way. Taking the women and children as babies taking toys that do not belong to them, they are forgiven, for they are just babies needing breasts to feed and bottles to drink.
I can feel their childish ways begging God for food. Begging God for a home, they had no where to go, but like spiders, finding a place to call their own. They just lost their parents, their leaders, and all they have is a baby trust that must consume them as adults consume work. They feed off of their hope that this land will be theirs. They take all, and in their violence, they pursue the land, as children they take all they can for they are just babes. In our lives, we miss the diplomacy of negotiation, cooperation and collaboration for fear drives us to our destruction and theirs. It is in my mind that in the third heaven, I enter prayer and meditation that I might pray for men and women like Joshua and his peers. May we not be always babes fighting for milk, but may the kingdom give us milk without sorrow and death. May we stop killing for our meals. May our sweat be of water rather of blood? May we break bread with one another, be generous and share our wine with one another, and finally, life will become balance and our parents will stop dying, the babes will stop crying, and death will pass away for the need to die, to kill will finally end.
