I WAS HERE |
GASPING FOR AIR |
I am printing this part because of the overwhelming numbers of you asking me to get this on the site faster!!! Yes, Here in the darkness, I could suddenly see. I was not aware of every thing yet because it was a visual sensation akin to how your eyes are clouded when waking up from a very deep sleep. You all know this feeling. You are in those moments between sleep. You are awake enough to know you are waking, but your senses have yet to fully function. Asleep yet awake at the same time. I know we have all experienced this sort of twilite. I like to think of this moment as the bridge between realities. You become aware of where you are then recognize familiar objects around you. This is the sensation I felt. I was, am coming out of this deep sleep I'd been in and suddenly my "senses" began to kick in. Cognisance abruptly becoming aware, alerted, I was not alone! On my right side was a soft yet so very intense glow from a man standing next to me! I am stunned. Out of the black nothingness there is suddenly something. My eyes did not hurt from the glow, something I would expect walking from a dark room out into the sun. Very peculiar, and then here is this man next to me. The face was very kind and I did not feel threatened or danger of any kind. Aprehensive yes! I turned to face him and looked directly into his face. It was kind, reassuring and radiated what I can best describe as "unconditional love". Looking more completly I noticed that this person was wearing a loose fitting type shirt and some slacks. The glow that was eminating made it difficult to really see the clothes well. The eminating glow was not faint nor overpowering. Yet, the glow was quite brite. I could look at it and my eyes did not hurt from the briteness. Inspite of the power of this eminating light, it was still a very soft glow. It appeared that this person was not just looking at me, but "seeing" the complete me. I could sense being totally viewed by him, so exposed. I could say that in a way I could feel his presence touching my soul. This suddenly alarmed me that I could be so exposed to someone, to anyone or anything where I was totally revealed and known by just a glance. Not even my wife and I have shared this type of fully revealing intimacy. There just isn't anything I can adequately compare this with. Somehow I was so totally bared and so very vulnerable to this person. He knew me well and yet we have never met! His presence alone was startling and wonderous. Perhaps it was the penetrating soft glow that surrounded him that added to the majesty of his person, or maybe just the penetration of his eyes as he looked at me. Whatever caused this can only be best described as a totality of being! ABSOLUTENESS !! Then there was this sound feeling. There was this sound without a sound. It was everywhere and nowhere. The feeling was deafening and undetectable, beautiful and terrifying,hidden and totally revealed,definately an unmistakable presence WHICH UNDERLYED AND REVEALED OMINIPOTENCE! A description of which I have told Virginia of underlying and absolute power. Words lack relation of this. More than thunderous rumbles. Much Much more than the powerful rumbles that I have felt standing close to the tracks as heavy loaded trains sped by. Moreso overpowering than the experience of having been near jet aircraft as they thundered with fully powered afterburners in takeoff. Yes, so much more than the tremendous power that I have felt and lived through some powerful and destructive earthquakes. More awesome than the experience of the eruption and imminent danger threated to Virginia and I of Mt. St. Helens! ( I've used This volcanic eruption when attempting to shared this awesome feeling of power with Virginia since we both lived through this together. She and I was "impressed" by this display of nature and god's power. Our lives were duly impactd forever by this one event so it has been a viable happening to use) More presence than imagining all these things combined! There was no noise, no powerful shaking, no being lost in the thunder of power. It was strength,victory,absoluteness, and still there was gentleness and tenderness laced with total understanding. I felt overcome with the absolute power of infinate being! This power was there and yet it was hidden. The power was all contained and eminated from this man next to me. It flowed from him to me. It filled my senses and my being. This infinate absoluteness penetrated my totality of being. I was nothing and this power lifted me up from the darkness I found myself in. The very best comparison of this feeling offered is feable at best, but it is the idea that should be conveyed. This "lifting up" is most like jumping into an ice cold lake on a hot day. This soul shocking had me gasping for breath! Have you ever had the wind knocked out of you? Have you ever had a physical soul shocking experience that rendered you incapable, fighting to breathe, to regain physical,mental,emotional control?? He spoke without speaking. I could feel, and I knew that He knew me, everything about me, what I was feeling and thinking, that he knew EVERYTHING! His voice was calm, peaceful, restful, reassuring. He called me by my name. "Patrick, don't be afraid. Everything is okay." I believed him. I knew that he spoke absolute truth and I felt much calmer. He was truth, love, power, forgiveness, strength. I could go one and one and still not describe this. I vainly hunt for this description. I struggle to make sense of this totality of existence and presence this man exuded. I was and am so overwhelmed and overcome with his existence! I somehow moved closer to him and noticed that he was holding something. Cradled in his right arm is what I can best describe as a rather large laptop computer. It could have been a book, it was white, square, and also glowed. I cannot describe it any better than this because I could not see it well through their combined glows. I tried to look at it more closely since I was interested in what it was and why he had it. When I tried to see it better, he would not let me. He would turn it away from me obscuring it from being fully viewable. No matter how hard I tried he would not allow me to view it. I could tell that there were words on the screen or pages but he hide that from me also. I want to share with you that I really gave my best to see this thing. Not that I tackled this person or attempted to grab it, nor was any aggression exerted. I did my very best to look at it, so see it well. I was eagerly wanting to know what it was because I felt, I knew that this object was of tremendous importance and I was somehow connected to it. So, I made my best effort to view it. This man easily thwarted my every attempt simply by turning it away from me. There was no malice in his doing this. He was gentle, patient, understanding, and easily capable of not allowing me to view it. I can't understand it even now, the ease with which he allowed me to know, to see that he had this, but prevented me from seeing more of it or better. I wondered this and yet did not utter any sounds or speak any words and he answered me. He said, "It is not yet your time to look at this. It will come but it is not now" |
Yes, I spent a considerable amount of time staring at this man and the laptop that he was holding. All of the thousands of questions that someone finding themself in this situation were swirling in my mind. Here in this extraordinary circumstance was this extraordinary man who at the same time appeared also so unextraordinary and so very humble. I was awash in the very contradiction of my senses. All things were but were not. I thought by studying this person I might begin to make a little sense of the moment. I did this and I will do my best to describe him here. I came to know his features and appearance well. Today, if he were to walk by me on the street, be a face in a crowd, I would know him! I was close and looked at him in awe as a child would look at the "over powering stature" of their parents. He appeared to be an ordinary person, apart from the glow and the power that protruded around him. He was about 5'9" and had an olive skin complextion. He was not "white" or "black" but seemed more of a healthy sun tan softly coloured. His overall build was on the wirery side, yet definately not slight. He was not skinney by any means, just put together in the style of an active healthy jogger. I looked down and could not see if he had any feet. The glow around him actually made seeing him somewhat difficult - even being right next to him, but it was easy to tell that he had a human appearance and build, apart from what was obscured by the glow, that intense aura around him. Then again, this glow and the power, the feelings that surrounded him made him so much more than human. When looking at his face I was submerged in his eyes immediately. The eyes captured and demanded attention. I found it difficult to look at them and even more difficult to look away. They were soft and compassionate yet there was this feeling that accompanied them of terrible vengeance. The eyes were dark pools that I could easily have gotton lost and drowned in. I felt that the eyes were also swords of swift final judgement. I could have been afraid of his eyes alone, but instinctively knew that I would not be harmed by them. Eyes filled with swift terrible absolute power and soft forgiving compassion and love. His face was rather long oblong shaped and slender in appearance as if it had been drawn out just a little. His features were "chiseled". A pronounced forehead due to the elongation of his face helped his dark penetrating eyes appear deep socketed. His chin was distinctively up a little from the bottom of his face and definately pronounced. It was on the forward bottom front of his face rather than at the very bottom of it. His chin did seem distinctive due to the overall oblong roundness. This shape complimented it rather than appear odd. His eyes were sunken, dark, and deep. Easily the most pronounced and captivating feature. There were those eyes again. His mouth was an average mouth about which I found nothing distinctive, but he did have a rather large nose. I did catch myself thinking that it was perfect for the shape of his face. Any smaller and the nose would have been lost in his features. Larger and it would have overpowered and practically lept off of his upper lip. . |
It is sufficient to say that this person's face reminded me of Charleston Heston if he appeared as an Arab. No, not the "moses" Mr. Heston from the ten commandments movie, but something very very akin to his deep riveting eyes and the chiseled features which set him apart as a "MANS' MAN" look ! The above picture was one that I came into possesion at a meeting I was COMPELLED to attend. Please discount the clothes and focus on the face! The facial features from the side view uncannily resemble the rugedness of his face as I experienced it. His face showed the experience he had weathered. Deep etched lines of human suffering. Features which made one feel an empathy with him!!! Yes, EMPATHY with the presence of total understanding. Something that each one of us can identify with from a personal experience. Something non-descript that is personal and private that only we have secretly, and individually have suffered through! I can include in this description that the face was one of those magical faces that you see on photos of homeless people hidden in back alleys and street corners that say " I have been there, I have lived this, I understand your pain. I know what you are going thru because I have been there too. I have been there with you". So, so human, and yet so much more than simple human understanding. I lost myself in this man's simple majesty!! |
I was very immersed in this man as you can tell. I was more than awestruck, I was totally immersed. His appearance, presence, the big book/computer, the power that eminated from him in ways undescribable. How could you not be totally captivated? How? Would there be any possible way any one of us could not be totally enthralled and captivated by this radiance? |
How much time passed, I do not know. It could have been moments or centuries. There just is not any true way to have mesured the passage of time because my friends, TIME WAS NOT IMPORTANT! Having been pressed to give an estimate, I still don't have an answer. Who cared when in such a presence? Seconds, centuries, moments, weeks, years? Who knows? The passage of time was not relevant and all things melded as a oneness. Alpha and omega is the term that applies here. The beginning is the end and the end is the absolute beginning. There is no differentiation or distinction of a time measurement. None whatsoever. There were no clocks, watches, or ticking sounds. These thngs relevant to time were not relevant, they were not important. So the time that I spent with John was not a measurable commodity. What was important was that I was existing here in this place with this wonderous person. This wonderous person who was beyond understanding and adequate worldly description. |
While at a full gospels mens gathering, a person in the group drew this picture from the description I have shared. I do think that he has captured the facial features I attempted to descrbe. The picture is his interpretation of what I have shared |
An eternity passed, maybe a few seconds when This wonderous man pointed in a direction in front of us. Not a word was shared but I knew that we were going somewhere, or the somewhere was coming to us. Perhaps we would be meeting each other. For a moment I felt to co-exist with wherever I was and where we would be. The darkness was ripped away as we immersed in brilliant living light. |
I WAS HERE |
