"To Me...To Me..."

Recently in the madness that has been the last month during Spiritual Direction I had one of those moments where you are seemingly transported beyond yourself.

Towards the end of our session I was encouraged in prayer to open myself up to what I wanted to say to God and indeed what God wanted to say to me. Two things came through, the first was a yearning whereby I had a real sense of God missing me. It blew my mind that God could miss me!

It has left me with a sense of how it is I hold God at bay as I go about my daily life, and left me asking what it is I place between God. This is of course something that I am going to have to unfold more, however it was a gentle reminder of how easily I turn off from the reality of God being ever present.

Then as we were sitting there in silence I had the oddest vision.

There were no kittens, puppies, harps or clouds. Instead I was on a battle field surrounded by a thin mist. All around me were the sounds of swords clashing and fighting, of horses screaming and people dying. Underneath all this madness I was aware of the constant smell of death.

It seemed as if I were all over the battlefield.

At one moment fighting here, at another over on another front fighting there, carrying water here, dragging bodies there, always though I was in this battle against an enemy in the smoke and fog. In this battle I had many roles and many views, I was exhausted and alone, unable to see those who fought with me.

Then through it all there came a cry that cut across all other sounds.
It was the commander shouting out “To Me, To Me!”
Suddenly there was a focus and a call greater than the call to rise up the sword once more. It was as if all of the me’s (remember I was in many places) heard the call simultaneously fell back to that call “To me”.
When I/we did this we found ourselves outside a tent surrounded with smoke.

Although it ended here the sense was, that now it would be okay the Commander may send the now me singular out again, but we would not be alone he would be with us. We would not be scattered, we would know where and who we were, and indeed why, we had direction.

Although I have had such moments before, they have never been so military based. Although this surprised me it was at the same time right.
That evening as I sat in the installation service the reading came of a tent in the wilderness over which the spirit rested. I sat there with my jaw dropped to the floor.