The Whale Song

I had a series of dreams last night that, as usual, I can't recall most of them. But the last one woke me up with strong emotions. In it one of my old classmates, Rick Westermeyer, was doing a video presentation that illustrated a new song. The music and words were emerging from various other sources that seem too foggy and strange for my logical awake mind to reassemble, but the resulting single little ditty I quickly put back together soon after I woke up from the dream at a very early hour.

The music as best I can reassemble it went something like this: (pardon my crude way of notation)

E-D-C- -C

FFFEED- - -

G-F-E-EFD

C-B-C- - -

The video clip was of a supernatural whale that I began to realize represented Jesus, swimming in the vast ocean opening up his mouth to swallow up the surrounding filth and poison that was contaminating the surrounding water. I could see at first hundreds of gallons of water falling into the cavernous open mouth just below the surface of the water as the whale slowly surfaced head-first. Then the whale would turn, dive and return to the surface for another huge gulp. Since not all of the pollution had been eliminated, the ratio of the scene dramatically increased so that the size of the whale relative to the surroundings increased exponentially. It was like the first gulp was relative to one person's filth floating around in the water and the next gulp was a whole countries contamination. Then the pollution from the whole world was taken in and finally the ocean represented the whole cosmos as the whale continued to swallow into himself all the floating debris that threatened the purity of the waters.

The words of the song were equally very simple, like a little child would make up. It was just these:

Love, love, love

Can swallow up anything.

Love, God's love can swallow up

Anything at all.

The reality of the truth behind this little song that absolutely nothing, no amount of sin no matter how disgusting, evasive or widespread that can be found anywhere in the universe is outside the ability of Jesus to ingest into Himself and overcome its negative effects on the surroundings – the reality suddenly hit me in that dream and my amazement and gratitude and relief overwhelmed me with sudden, intense emotion and I woke up almost crying. The song kept running over and over in my mind for the next several hours of the early morning as I wonder why it is here.

For awhile I wondered why the emotion faded so quickly but the song remained. I craved a longer period of intensity and started to ask God to bring back the original emotion and let me feel it again. But I was reminded that my life must not be rooted and grounded on emotions but on the facts of redemption. Emotions are not wrong – they can be very helpful sometimes in clarifying our attention and focusing us on something. But they can easily become addictive if I want to always live from emotion more than the reality of God Himself. Emotions can just as easily be produced by lies as by truth. They are not bad or good of themselves, but they make for very unreliable footing material to build a solid structure over.

My pride god was embarrassed by the simplicity of this song. It is afraid of what people will think of me if I share this story with them. Another part of me wonders if someone will hear this and receive wonderful confirmation of something they received from God themselves. I don't know if that thought is from God's Spirit in me or a more devious face of my pride or may some of both.At any rate, I will simply accept what I have been given and see what happens after this.

I also wonder how much this “revelation” was influenced by the movie I watched last night about the Tucker automobile story. The spirit that Mr. Tucker demonstrated was so radically different and uncommon that it definitely stirred my curiosity and disrupted the status quo box I am often stuck in.

O.K. It happens again! The devotional I read after writing the above strongly reinforces what was given and written before I knew what I was going to read. To Be Like Jesus exposes the reality and a glimpse of the immensity of our very closely connected family in heaven with us here on earth. The angel choirs literally take up our thanksgiving and praise and incorporate it into their own songs immediately. This means that instead of being a stupid little ditty that my pride is ashamed of, I may have been entrusted with a solo part of one of heaven's current hit anthems. The music may be a theme line that the angels embellish and amplify and fill all the arches of heaven with when I am willing to accept my place and sing my little part from my heart. This is more than awesome!

Ezekiel 36 again.