attack!

"for we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms." eph 6: 12 (nlt)last night i got bitten from a great white shark in my dream. don't ask me how i knew it was a great white. my right leg was all gnawed off and bloody. then for some odd reason i decided oh well, better make the most of the day and got back in the water! suddenly i was transferred to the pier at my grandma's house. the shark surprise attacked and rammed against the pier breaking it in half. i ran to the the shore falling midway on the shaking but intact part of the pier. i called to jeff who was standing along the shore to help me. he was logical but i could sense his inner concern, "what are you doing?!?!! why are you in the water? of course he is coming back for you! he can smell your blood." i fell on my stomach but while holding my balance tried to lift my leg in the air so he wouldn't smell the blood-a difficult maneuver i would only try in dreams-. but, the blood kept running down my legs and falling into the water. just when the shark was about to attack i woke up crying for help. ah!

maybe it was the kimchee, but i seem to be having mad dreams. i've been experiencing a recurring, "moving from college dream." this dream is partly entertaining...seeing old friends like my old roommates or random dorm girls, but partly exhausting ...packing, moving, and figuring out how much more work i have to do like everything is happening at once. needless to say, my sleep isn't the restfulness it could be. i like to pray before bed so that i am protected before sleep. one of my professors taught that when you dream you are opened up to the supernatural realm. this makes me wanna put on my ephesians "armor of Christ" before i sleep. since this isn't my most familiar territory, i prefer only safe, kind, quick dream visits.

why do dreams feel so real? even though i sometimes know a piece of reality while i am in the dream, like my grandma's house is on a lake not an ocean, it still feels so real. i have heard about people in oppressive situations living in isolation coming to Christ through experiences in their dreams.

now bobby thinks i am crazy, but if i had to die i would like it to be in the belly of a shark. of course i say this now while i am safe on land. there is just something so incredible about the majestic mighty wild beasts of the world. i have a thing against killing creatures, hence vegetarian despite how tasty bacon is with breakfast. but there is something even more disturbing about manipulating mighty ones so powerful they could crush us in a quiver of a tail or fin. have you ever seen a great white breach? fascinatingly horrifying. bobby once took me to see "blue planet" at the Hollywood Bowl to which i grew the odd recurring dream of the killer whale ever since. it basically ripped my heart open watching killer whales bombard a momma and baby gray whale, while they were migrating, until the darkness prevailed and someone got a meal and a mother whale went alone across the California coast and choas exerted its sway on the axis of the world. besides the beastlike qualities, out of their sheer awe inspiring mightiness, i just cannot take the thought of someone hurting them let alone the unmentionable. for say, just a bowl or a few bowls, of shark fin soup hundreds of sharks are caught and hacked away with machetes for a single fin then thrown overboard to die a slow and staggering death. or say for the cost of a single rock, but a beautiful one, a diamond favored to symbolize love, marriage, and status in American culture an arm or a life is chopped by the machete simply to gain a buck in desperation for the competition for money, life, survival, and power in the world. how are we different than the beasts? how are we the stewards of the earth? i just don't understand naming them and then.... or like cain and abel turning against our own brother or sister equally made in the image of God, for what?


the brutality of a machete provokes a stomach turning wrongness. perhaps it is allthe stories of Rawandan or Sudanese or Sierra Leoneans lives being taken from the repeated assult of God breathed flesh as if it were mere wood to be sawed away in the lumberfield. probably the last way i would ever want to die would be at the mercy of a human possessed with darkness holding a machete doing the unthinkable.

this sunday, people are gathering in Central Park and all over the world to cry out for the oppression, murder, rape, and injustice to end in Darfur. in the mist of darkness, attack, and chaos...there is always the hope of light to come.

i love the ending chapters of Isaiah. no matter how many times i read it, it still evokes a deep peace within me...the hope of my true home. that when i get that this feels so wrong feeling, i am reassured that reality will not be as atrocious in my Master's house and i long for the pressence of God.

"for i am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. but be glad and rejoice forever in what i am creating; for i am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.

i will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the should of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress. no more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

they shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. they shall not build and another rinhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

they shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord-and their descendants as well.

before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.

the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent-its food shall be dust! they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord." Isaiah 65: 17-25 (nrsv)

sometimes its nice just to wake up and know it's Sunday.