To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

-William Blake

I thought often of free will. Raziel had been right. I'd been free to choose after all. It made me think of his choices. He told me himself that, at least once, he'd made a terribly bad decision. I'd assumed, because he was obviously a being of goodness and power and knowledge far beyond my own, that doing whatever he said was right. What if he'd made a mistake? What if, in exercising his own free will, he'd been wrong to ask me to act as prophet? Maybe there didn't need to be a single voice, crying out in the wilderness, but millions of voices speaking with love from every corner of the earth. Maybe no one needed to bear the Power of That Which Is in the way I did, but instead we should all strip away the layers that hide the tiny spark we were imbued with by our Creator. Surely, all of those little sparks, united, would chase away even the darkest shadow.

I fell asleep one night, thinking such thoughts, and I found myself, once again, in Acedia's realm. Once again the swirling red mist and the great void surrounded me in every direction. The mist was thicker now, a bloody murk that wrapped itself around everything that moved and was itself fully conscious and moving and alive with the moaning, hopeless souls of the lost ones. It wasn't fear that held me in place this time, but it's opposite. I felt brave. I knew now there was nothing this pathetic creature, consumed by his own envy, could do to hurt me. It wasn't because of the power of That Which Is, which was given to me from the outside as a boon to help me perform some great deed. He couldn't hurt me because the very essence of what made me a human and brought me to life was the breath of That Which Is. I was not helped by The Light. I was The Light made manifest and, in a battle between darkness and light, darkness would lose every time. Darkness wasn't even a thing, only the absence of a thing. So as long as I chose to carry on no external force could extinguish the light within me. As long as I stood in this realm, darkness could not overcome it completely.

"You think you've won some kind of little personal victory," he hissed. "But don't you see? My foothold grows stronger each day. Every day more souls are lost. Every day the earth crumbles more under my feet. Every day the creatures of the realms grow more envious of what man has, and every day leads closer to my victorious end."

"I do agree that the war is not over, but I know now you won't be victorious. You can't defeat That Which Is. Don't you see? That. Which. Is. Not That Which Used To Be, or That Which May Continue. We are all a part of That Which Is. It is in us, and we are in It. That Which Is can't stop being. It Is. You can't stop it. It can't even stop itself. You're a fool on a fool's errand. You will have your little victories along the way but what you seek cannot be accomplished. Not by a million creatures rising against their Creator. You are no more than a million ants fighting to destroy the planet! At most you will build a little hill that will be crushed under the heel of an oblivious passerby. Stop now and beg forgiveness and maybe you'll be shown mercy."

Acedia raged at me. He grew immense in his true form. He towered over me as the Redwood towers over the tiniest forest creature and his form blazed and flared and pulsed like so much molten lava. "IGNORANT MORTAL!" he screamed, his voice sharper and more deadly than a thousand gore-smeared swords.

"What will you do to me, Acedia? Kill me? Set me free from my mortal bonds that I may join this fight as a spirit being with freedom to move through time and space and into the unfiltered presence of That Which Is?" I laughed in the face of his rage. "Kill me. Send me to my son. My form isn't important. The light within me will carry on. You can't touch me. I'm nothing. Only the Spark exists. You're as impotent as a shriveled old man. Release me now. I want to go home."

He roared. It was a sound born on a wave of pure heat and hatred. It picked me up and threw me backward in a flash of exquisite pain. I felt myself carried on an unnatural wind for an unreasonable distance. I expected to hear my bones crack as I crashed into some solid barrier. Instead, I woke up, safe in my extraordinary husband's arms, wrapped in warm blankets that still smelled faintly of the clover that covered the ground under the line where they were dried.

I felt a perfect, peaceful contentment. He'd had to obey me. He sent me home. He had no power over us.

I drifted back to sleep and found myself again in mist and void, yet this place was as different from the other as day is different from night. Light, pure white, yet full of color radiated from everything. It reflected from everything. It was everything. No shadows existed here. There was simply not enough space for darkness, yet I knew instinctively that this realm was infinite and without boundary. Actual, golden gates gleamed in front of me. I moved toward them as though drawn by a shimmering cord.

I understood what the Bible means when it talks about "the fear of God." Even at this distance, I could sense the colossal power and I knew I was nothing at all by comparison. I was as an insect in the grass, completely at the mercy of every other thing around me. Everything was larger than me by a measure so vast as to be inconceivable. I had never felt so tiny. And yet, at the same time, a fierce spark within my heart responded to this place with a powerful attraction. It was as though the very center of that which made me me, the most secret, hidden place in the core of my heart was attached to this place. As we drew nearer, the tension on the cord that pulled me became more and more taut. I found myself covering my heart with my hands as though to protect it from being wrenched from my chest. It was not a bad feeling in any way, but utterly overwhelming. It was the sheer, unadulterated joy of a child on Christmas morning magnified to an infinite degree.

A woman came toward me.As she approached, the white emptiness that stretched between us took on shape. Grass unfolded beneath her feet and rolled out in every direction, a lush carpet without thorn or blemish. Trees pushed up and unfurled their branches and leaves. A stream bubbled up and began to flow with a trickling babble more joyful than the sweetest sound of babies' laughter. A sky of crystalline robin's egg blue formed itself above her, rolling out from a center point, billowing white clouds blossoming like so many dandelion heads in the sky.

It was like the earth I knew, yet different. It was the earth of dreams and fantasy, wishes and hope. Flowers bloomed everywhere. Their petals were red silk, and blue velvet, but also the most gleaming polished silver and gold. The bark on the trees varied from the silken softness of seal skin to the unyielding strength of titanium and the leaves were bells that tinkled and pealed quietly in a breeze that was perfectly balanced to feel refreshing in the warmth of the Light that came from the very molecules of the atmosphere we stood in.

The landscape filled with people, walking alone and in groups. They shimmered into view, talking and laughing, moving with heads bowed, as meditative as monks, singing out in praise to the One who had created from the very beginning. They wore robes of gray, and pink, and yellow, that seemed tied to neither a particular period in history nor any one culture in the world.

Among them were a few dressed in purest white. It was a white more brilliantly perfect than any textile designer on earth could ever hope to achieve. It was flawless.The fabric appeared as soft as air itself. These few individuals seemed to be held in special esteem by all of the others. As they moved about the others gave a certain respect to them, stopping their conversation to greet them or tip their heads in acknowledgement.

No one was old or young, but some perfectly matured, ageless, in-between. They were people at their prime--their most fabulously fulfilled divine expression. They were people who knew the serene contentment of the absolute fullness of a created being.

The woman was the only one I saw dressed in blue. She stretched her arms out toward me. Her smile was welcoming acceptance in its most real and tangible form. With lovely, slender-fingered hands, she reached out and took my hands in her own.

Her eyes searched mine. I felt as though she saw into the center of my being but held no judgment for good or bad. She sought only to know me better. It was being welcomed home by a mother, but so much more.

"I have felt your pain," she said, her eyes expressing not pity, but empathy. "I've watched the son of my body, the child of my heart, die at the hands of another while I stood helpless to stop it. I've seen his blood flow. I have screamed out for him and begged for his life and hated those who caused his pain and mine."

I fell into her arms sobbing. I cried like I hadn't cried since I was a child. My tears soaked the front of her lovely robe. My legs gave way and we sank to the silken blanket of the ground beneath us. Still she held me, and still I cried.

I had never allowed myself to think about it. I'd certainly never given it voice. It wasn't just missing my beautiful little baby boy that hurt. I was tormented by a seething black hatred. I hated Acedia for hurting Donovan and for taking Ike away from me. I despised him. I wanted him ripped apart and destroyed. I wanted him to suffer and die and burn in a lake of sulfur for the rest of eternity. I hated the ones who followed him, who had chained me and dragged my baby boy to his death. I hated Tesscati in all his arrogance and pride and horrible, unspeakable appetites. I hated them all. And I was fiercely, overwhelmingly angry with the God who would allow these things to happen. Why did it have to be this way? What was the point? Why did any of our lives matter if it all just ended in bloodshed and death? Look at this place we were in at this moment. If he just wanted us to exist in community why couldn't we come straight here and live in perfection and harmony? What kind of a sick mind demanded putting people through seventy or eighty or one hundred years of the Hell of life before letting them into Heaven? I convulsed with the ferocity of my anger and sadness. She held me and her own tears fell, mingling with mine.

There was no time in this place. Her patience was unending. At some point my sobs quieted and still I stayed in her arms like a frightened child. She held me, without rebuking me or pushing me away. She stroked my hair and waited. Slowly my heart and mind quieted as my sobs had. I became aware of a lovely, piercing voice singing in a language that was utterly foreign to me, yet I felt I knew it, somewhere in the furthest reaches of the back of my mind. It was a language of flawless expression. Each sound and syllable carried exactly as much meaning as was needed--no more or less. Each rolled off the tongue of the singer as though called up from her very heart.

I looked for her and spotted her immediately--an Indian woman standing twenty feet or so away, with her hands held out in supplication in front of her, head tilted to the sky and eyes closed. She, too, had a face damp with tears. To her left and right, forming a perfect circle were other women, kneeling in postures of prayer. They had their hands clasped in front of their hearts or covering their faces. Some of them rocked back and forth and, though none of them except the singer made any noise at all, every one of them wept. I understood with clarity I couldn't explain that each of these women had seen their children die at the hands of another. They had moved on, in their own way, living lives that were good and purposeful and a pleasure to That Which Is, but their hearts never stopped hurting. They gathered now, here in this place, and offered up their prayers. They prayed for the souls of their children and for their own souls for, unable to forgive completely, they had been unable to enter Heaven. They had come this far but could go no further and so they begged The One who created them to help them. Help them forgive those who had caused them pain, including the very one to whom they prayed.

"This isn't Heaven." I stated this, understanding that it wasn't, yet unable to imagine anything better.

"No, child. This place is close to Heaven, but there are no tears in Heaven. There is only love and peace."

She pointed. I saw a massive wooden door. It was carved with the most extraordinary symbols; beautiful, and intricate, and flawless. It hung in space, not supported by anything or leading to anywhere as far as I could see. A man stood there. He was a little shorter than me and had the extremely stout build of one who was a hardworking tradesmen, born as the son of generations of such men. His dark brown beard reached to the center of his chest and his white robes glistened in the Light. Around his neck hung a golden key on a string.

As I watched, another man approached him and he smiled warmly. The two of them spoke for a moment. The man in white embraced the newcomer before taking the key from around his neck, unlocking the door and opening it. A brilliance so powerful it created a wind that blew through the space around us shown through.My heart seized within my chest. The man laughed out in rapturous joy that echoed through my soul. He clapped his hands and bounced on his toes like a toddler, too excited at what he sees to actually reach out and take it. Then he ran forward into the brilliance and the door slowly closed and there was a great sigh throughout the multitudes.

"You can't go into Heaven. It's not time. You're not ready, but there is much for you to see and understand here, Simone."

"If I go back, I will die of loneliness. I can't survive there after being in this place."

"You can. Raziel was right. You are remarkably strong. Be careful of the problem of the tyranny of memories. Trust God's love to make all things well. Remember only through the lens of the light of God's love."

I didn't understand her words, but I stored them in my heart as she led me along. We stopped on a square stone step. I was alone in a forest, now. All around me, the trees towered, their lush green leaves rustling in the wind, impossibly high up above my head. I could hear the good sound of the branches creaking and smell the sweetness of honeysuckle on the air. The ground was covered with leaves and pine needles and, every here and there, little patches of purple and blue and white flowers had pushed through the detritus to open their cheerful faces to view. The blooms were tiny, smaller than my pinky nail, but they were exquisitely beautiful, each faultlessly crafted as though it were not just a flower but the very essence of what a flower was supposed to be. In front of me, a long staircase made of uncut, flat river rocks wound down the steep hillside to the bottom, which I couldn't see from where I was. I wondered what was down there. Should I go on? I heard the faintest bit of a giggle in the far off distance of the ravine.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous quote came to me: "You don't need to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step in faith." And so I did. I stepped down, my slippered foot making no sound on the moss-patched rock. I took another step, and another, and found myself descending the hillside, through the primeval forest until I could see the bottom of the ravine where a river of modest size rushed along in a turbulent babble. The water was so clear you could make out each individual stone on the riverbed. Stones that were not the ordinary gray and brown you would expect, but smoothly polished orbs of emerald and ruby and sapphire, pink and green tourmaline, and fiery opals. The light sparkled, and danced, and played off the water and the brilliant rocks, like so many thousands of tiny sprites, delighting in the wonders of nature.

I heard the giggle again, a little louder and closer this time and I felt drawn to this precious laughter. I was racing now, running toward the sound with abandon.

I reached the bottom and the forest opened to a thin strip of grass-covered riverbank. Golden insects, unlike any I had ever seen before bussed around in the thick grass and I scrambled along the river bank in search of the source of that sound. I heard it again and I was certain. "Ike!" I cried out, a sob in my throat. "Where are you, baby?" Another laugh. Was it behind me now? I ran in that direction. "Where are you? Come to Mommy!"

"Simone." It was Raziel.

I had no desire to see him. My goal was singular. "Ike!"

"Simone," he said again, and grasped my arm in a hold that was not at all painful but firm and unbreakable. "Let me go!" I demanded.

"Simone, listen to me," he said.

"No! I need to go to him! I can hear him!"

"Listen," he said and I looked up at him with tear filled eyes. "Ike is content in his place here. He has crossed. Do you want to risk upsetting that balance? He is in a place that is perfect--utterly and completely perfect. There is no pain or suffering or confusion. There is no darkness or sickness or anything that can hurt him. He is bathed in The Light and able to bask in it. What do you think it would do to him to see you now?"

"But..." How my heart ached.

"Listen," he said again, more gently. I heard the laughter again and knew that the angel was right. My child was in a perfect place. Nothing good would come from my interference.

I looked into Raziel's eyes. "I miss him so much," I sobbed.

"I know," he said.

What else was there to say? I dropped onto a large stone at the water's edge and wept and, in this place, my crying was a great cleansing. There was no shame or feeling that I should try to stop. It was as though each tear that fell was a prayer lifted on behalf of the soul of my child and the heart of his grieving mother. In grieving, I felt that which had been torn apart inside me begin to heal.

As the sun crested the horizon, I woke once more in my own bed. I lay there, comfortable and safe, for a long time. This wasn't the mindless stupor I'd been in for so long, but quiet peacefulness and purpose of spirit. I understood what this day would bring. I was ready and willing to do my part. I was less confident about "able" but I figured I'd leave that part up to That Which Is.