The communion of saints

I'm no mystic. I'm not. I feel the need to say that up front. Because that is important to me for two reasons.

The first, my grandfather died in 1988.

The second, I spent the bulk of my day yesterday with my grandfather.

Now, that second part didn't really happen. Not really. I knew it wasn't real but the experience was so clear, so vivid, and it felt so real that I could not tell that it wasn't real at the time. Let me explain.

I woke up yesterday about an hour later than usual. I was very groggy and had a severe headache. I read scripture in the morning like usual but couldn't really wrap my head around it. I tried to compose a blog post yesterday like usual but couldn't really wrap my head around it. I went to the church and led worship like usual. Well, I guess I did. I honestly don't remember much about worship. My head wasn't there. I wasn't there. I was somewhere else. Or maybe I was nowhere at all. Wherever I was or wasn't my head was killing me there.

We went to The Rock / La Roca after worship and visited some friends. I perked up a little bit. Then I drove home, had lunch, and laid down for a bit. My head hurt. I wasn't going to take a nap. I was just resting. But I was lethargic. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't move. I could just lay there. Hurting.

I found out later that I had a fever. I don't know much about that. But I do know that I was moving quickly in and out of the room. I was moving in and out of myself and in and out of time.

In my travels I spent time with my grandfather. My Papaw. We hung out in his basement in Elgin. He smoked a pipe and we talked about basketball. We hung out in his basement in Springfield. We talked about life. We talked about pickup trucks and owls (my brothers will understand). My parents fussed at him because he let me drink too much pop. I went to a basketball game with him and he let me eat some licorice rope. We did things. We did nothing. We did them all at once.

Some of these events really happened in his lifetime. I remember them now. But it was odd. I was neither a child nor an adult. I was just me. He was not the age that he was in my memories, nor the age he was when he died. He wasn't any age at all. He was merely himself. That's hard for me to explain. It's hard now for me to understand.

I remember his face clearly. I remember his voice. I remember his scratchy stubble. I remember his Reebok basketball shoes that turned his toes black when he played in them. That man that I physically remember wasn't the person in my dreams. It's not that he didn't look like that. It's that he didn't look like anything. At least, not anything I can describe. I didn't either. I don't know how I could tell who either of us was but I could. I could just tell. He wasn't who he was in this life. He was who he always was. Who he was made to be. It was different. No age. No looks, or at least not any that made any sense. He was all ages and all times all at once. Equal parts adult and child. As was I. We were simply ourselves. Not ourselves at any point in time but ourselves at all points in time. If that makes and sense.

I didn't want to leave. While I was speaking to him it occurred to me that, as real as this felt, it was only in my head. I couldn't stay there. I was moving too fast. I was heading home. To this place in space and in time.

As I awoke I punched the wall in frustration. I had no idea how long I slept, but I didn't want to wake up. Not then. I just wanted to steal a few more precious moments with a man who hadn't been available to me for almost 23 years.

I don't know what heaven is like. The idea of time in heaven doesn't make much sense. What use is time in eternity? When I was engrossed in this fever dream time didn't exist. It was as if all times were available at once. Years went by in seconds and seconds lingered for years. I can't explain what this was like. It was a different universe. Time didn't exist. Not in the way that we think of it.

Today I have a sense of peace I haven't had for a long time. It will pass. It will wear off. My experience wasn't "real". It was only in my head. I didn't really spend the day with my grandfather. We were not transformed radically into new creations. Our old, imperfect bodies were not replaced. We did not really exit the oppression of time. We did not transcend life and death as we know them here. But my experience was no less real than the memories I have of yesterday. This was no mere dream in the way I experienced it. Rational me will take over. Rational me will talk myself down from this experience. Rational me will work to make this make sense. I had a fever. I was delirious. I was sick. I was exhausted. I was asleep. I was dreaming.

But this was no mere dream. Not to me. Not yesterday, at least.