A Tumble in the Grass

A guided meditation based on John’s vision in Rev. 7:9–17 and Psalm 23

You are a young, busy college student from a small college. You’re pulling into the hospital parking lot to make your rounds as a summer intern. It is 8am on a Saturday, and you’ve already been up for 2 hours working on a paper before making your hospital rounds.

“If I can make the hospital visits quick,” you say to yourself, “then I can make the interns’ meeting at 10am, grab a quick lunch on the way to the college, sit in with the Campus Activities Board banner making group, check my messages and email, and then find some books from the library, pick up the event flyers from the printers on the way home, grab dinner, and spend the evening on my paper for tomorrow. That should work, as long as nothing or nobody gets in the way.”

You’re a good student, when life cooperates, and with every quick step you pump up the adrenalin needed to conquer the day.

Trotting across the street. You enter the hospital, pick up the patient names from the nurses’ station, and head off for the elevators. But before you get far, the Head Resident, Anne steps out of her office.

“Hi!” Dr. Anne greets you with warm smile. “You in a hurry?”

“No, not really,” you fib, trying to act relaxed and cordial for your boss. You feel a special bond with Dr. Anne from that intense summer experience in the hospital. You anticipate missing those rich times in her office, when you debrief those intense life-and-death moments with patients, and mentor-Anne listens and draws out your budding inner wisdom and vocation.

“Great,” Dr. Anne says, “could you visit someone for me?”

“Sure,” you say, trying not to show her how stressed you really feel.

“His name is John,” Dr. Anne says, handing you a slip of paper, “and here’s his room number. Well, we don’t really know his name, so we call him John Doe. He hasn’t objected to the name. He was found unconscious on the street outside the hospital. Just came out of it this morning, and has been acting rather strange. A stroke is my guess. The first thing he did was ask for pen and paper, and he hasn’t spoken or stopped writing since.”

“Wow, that’s a new one,” you say, genuinely curious.

Dr. Anne agreed, “Yeah, tell me about it.”

You take the note with the number, and find the room.

You knock on the open door. The man, “John” in the bed takes no notice of you, and keeps writing. You tentatively walk in, and see that he’s sitting up, crouching over the tray table, writing almost frantically, hardly blinking. He has covered six sheets of notebook paper front and back, with no corrections. He makes no sound. Occasionally he stops writing, without lifting his pen, closes his eyes, and then starts writing again. You’re taken by the man’s expression. To be working so fervently, he has no frown of hard work. His expression is intense but pleasant, even pleasured.

You introduce herself. The man keeps writing. You start to sit down next to the bed, but you’re too curious to see his writing.

“What are you writing? May I see?” You ask in your most cautious tone. He keeps writing. Now what do I do, you think. Do I stand here, do I look over his shoulder, do I talk to myself! You stand there for what seems like several minutes, feeling very awkward, and begin thinking about all the things you need to be doing. So you turn to quietly walk out, but then you feel a hand touch your arm. You turn back and see John put down his pen, then look up at you.

“What do you want?” you ask, but John just sighs, rolls his stiff neck, picks up his papers, and offers them to you.

“What is this?” you ask.

John pauses, and says, “I had a dream.” The man looks away from you, and into space as if still caught in the dream. “A wonderful dream.”

You take the papers from John, and begin to read:

I open the door before me. Beyond it is daylight, open blue sky and a footpath, straight and leading far to the horizon. Standing on the path is my Guide, extending a hand, bidding me on a journey. He’s a stranger to me, but I feel compelled to go with him, a trust beyond words.

“I can’t go on a journey,” I say. “I need to get myself together.”

“What do you lack? I have given you all you truly need,” my Guide assures me.

So I step through the doorway to a beautiful day. We walk. The pace is strong, rhythmic and satisfying. My Guide leads well, so I focus on his feet, stepping in time with him, and soon my heart and breathing and feet all synchronize.

“Don’t know where we’re going,” I say with satisfaction to myself, “but we sure are making good time.”

My Guide stops suddenly, turns to face me with a quizzical look.

“Are you looking? What do you see?” he asks with a disarming gentleness. I stop abruptly, breaking my rhythm, looking up from the trail.

“I see a trail heading off that way,” I say, “and the sun getting closer to sunset.”

“Is that all?” He asks openly.

“What else do I need to see?” I say, perplexed and anxious. “Why are we stopping?”

Looking around, I notice nothing special, just more of the same — footpath stretching behind us and out before us, beaten out of the grass by countless footsteps. My Guide says nothing. Contented there is nothing to see, I turn to meet his gaze. He looks deep into me, yet without judgement.

In a simple tone, he says, “step off the path.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Why not,” my Guide says, with a curious smile.

All I can see beyond the path is a few feet of tall grass, and beyond it bright blue sky, with brilliant orange and pink clouds as the sun descends. He extends his arm, inviting me to step off the path, saying nothing. I step off the clear path, and into the waist-high grass, parting it with my hands as I go. Suddenly the ground falls out from under me, and I tumble forward a couple of times in the soft grass. I sit up, unhurt, and giggle, “That was kinda fun,” I confess to myself.

I’m in shorter, soft, young grass, on the side of a great lush plain that stretches far and wide. I start to rise to my feet, but my guide stops me with a gentle hand on my shoulder. His touch quiets me, and I notice the unspeakable beauty of this place, one that I was walking through, quite unaware. The only sounds are of warm wind through grass, and cool water over rocks. Below me winds a river, clear and gentle, that flows from a valley of foothills, and beyond a distant mountain range. I find myself breathing deeply, like I have been holding my breath for very long time. All my life. The air is fresh and earthy, and seems to cleanse me with every breath. All my senses are alive and my soul is purged of its heaviness with every breath, with every calming sound, with every glance of this glorious place. Even the simple grass underneath me is soothing. We linger there. Time slips into meaninglessness.

I find myself walking along the river bank, below the wooded foothills. My guide is with me still, ahead of me. The sun is setting over the hills beyond, rimming the now purple clouds with glowing pink. We walk out of the last warm rays of daylight, and into the valley, where the air turns cool. The dark and chill close in fast, among the dense trees of the valley, as we walk along the riverbank.

Sensing my anticipation, my Guide slows down so that I can keep close. My Guide leans down and picks up a long, heavy driftwood branch. It makes a strong staff, sculpted smooth and graceful by the river. The solid sound of it striking the ground as my Guide walks is a comfort to me, despite my efforts to calm the night-fears of the child within. In a flash of vertigo, this place of beauty is transformed into a one of dread. Following the sound and dim form of my Guide holds me together. Somehow I know that, ultimately, nothing in this wilderness can take me if I stay close.

Through the night we walked, against the flow of the river, ever steeper and higher. The foothills turn to mountains, the footpath into switchbacks on rocky ledges as the gentle stream becomes a deafening mountain river. My Guide never misses a step, showing me the perfect route over every waterfall and around every cliff. My Guide’s staff aids every jump over rock and rushing water.

As the night sky begins to color with pre-dawn light, we climb the last waterfall to reach a great mesa. The early light illuminates a beautiful desert landscape. Dramatic rock formations, painted with deep earth tones of blood red, burnt orange, fiery yellow. We continue up river, leaving behind where the river leaped off the mesa into the valley below. As the sun’s first sliver appears, the painted landscape glows with magnificent colors.

My Guide stops on a small rise, and as I reach his side I see the source of the river. A great, round spring rises from the desert, a blue eye rimmed with an oasis of lush trees, and a river of tears trailing off. Movement catches my eye. I look closer to discover people streaming in from all directions to the oasis spring. My Guide takes me closer, and I watch as each person arrives at the spring’s edge, pauses, then steps in. The people are of many colors and places, yet they all share the same conditions. They are weary, withered, battered, hungry. Each one in turn wades into the water, tattered clothes and all. But when they come up, after the water passes over their heads, they are transformed. Coming out of the water, they are restored - body, mind and soul - wearing clothes of white. They walk out of the water with strength, without scar.

My Guide’s hand is on my shoulder, and I turn to him as he extends his arm and staff before me, toward the spring, inviting me to step in.

“That’s when I woke up.” John’s words snap you back to reality, back to the hospital room. You look up from the last word, and into John’s face.

“It’s a beautiful dream,” you say, looking into John’s eyes of wonder and contentment.

“What does it mean?” John asks you.

“I don’t know,” you say.

You realize you have no sense of how much time has past, but you know you shouldn’t look at your watch in front of a patient. So you hand John back his papers, thank him, wish him good health, and quietly turn to leave. Just as you reach the door, you pause, and look back to see John smiling softly. He raises his hand and gives you a relaxed wave goodbye. Whatever happened to him, you think, he seems perfectly healthy now.

Outside the door you glance at your watch. Quite unlike you, you have forgotten your schedule, so you pull out your calendar organizer. Then it hits you — there is no way you can get everything done you’ve scheduled for the day, so you break into a run down the hall to your next appointment. While trying to stuff your organizer into your backpack, you drop it. Calendar pages, address book and other papers spill out over the hospital floor in front of you. You fall to your knees, picking up the pieces of your life, exasperated.

As you gather the pages and are about to stand, you hear someone say, “Excuse me,” as the person steps around you. You didn’t realize your accident had blocked a doorway. You stand, glance inside, and see colorful stained glass and candles glowing, and realize it is the hospital chapel. A flash of embarrassment reminds you you’ve never actually seen the inside of the chapel, even though you’ve walk by it so many times.

The small chapel is pleasingly round with a doomed ceiling that glows with blue accent lights, quiet and inviting, decorated with many familiar symbols, so you walk to the front. On the front pew, you notice someone has left a book, open, with a marker between the pages. You sit down, pick it up, and read:

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside waters of rest; He revives my life.

He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil;

For you are with me;

Your rod and your staff — they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

The words rush over you, and through you, like cool water.

Dr. Anne, the Head Resident stands in the hallway as you step slowly out of the chapel. You stand there, lost in thought.

“You OK?”

“Yeah,” You reply absently, looking down at nothing. “I just need to go for a tumble in the grass.” Then you look over and give your mentor a slight smile.

Dr. Anne tilts her head, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

You pause, give a single, quiet laugh, “Oh nothing.”