Lenses

by Michael Jones

And there in my dream, I saw a table.
On the table was a swirling cloud,
Moving and changing,
Pulsing with energy,
And I knew it was my life.
Looking straight at it I could make out nothing.
It was constantly evolving,
Reorganizing,
Developing and dissolving,
With the details always just out of reach.

But next to my life were five viewers,
Hand-held like a detective's magnifier,
With lenses five different colors.
I knew in my dream that if I used them to view my life,
They would help me see the truth.

I picked up the rose-colored glass.

Through it, I saw my family and how much they love me.
I saw that I have been blessed with food to feed them and
Money to buy things for them.
I saw my good friends, my favorite movies,
My talents and my joys,
My happinesses and my comforts.
And I also saw my blissful, willful ignorance of poverty
Illness
Hunger
Violence
Need
And I put down the rose-colored glass.

Then I picked up the sepia-colored glass.

Through it I saw my childhood, with all its happy times.
Summers playing outside
Shooting water pistols
Playing games, bought and invented
But I couldn't see the sad and hard times I remembered.
No confusing homework
Snubs by girls
Loneliness
Fear of the monsters under the bed
It was comfortable but it was a lie, so I put down the sepia-colored glass.

Then I picked up the glass with the blue lens.

I could see the day my dog died
The day my grandmother died
The days my hope died
I saw report cards with bad grades
Myself crying at night and not knowing why
Favorite toys broken
Not getting the job
That miscarriage
The friend who cheated me
The associate who used me
The year without a job
The deep, dark vortex of depression
I couldn't live without happiness — I put down the blue glass.

I hoped for better luck with the glass with the crystal-clear lens.
The handle was white, and it cast a light of its own.
And when I looked at my life in that harsh light,
I saw it with a brutal
Crystal
Clarity.
I saw that I sometimes hate, even to the point of fury.
I saw that I desire, even to the point of covetousness and sometimes lust.
I saw that I am prideful and sometimes look at others with disdain.
I saw that my selfishness often overrides my generosity.
I dropped the lens like it had just come out of a fire.
It was then that I noticed that it was nicked and scratched
Like it had been used as a weapon
And the lens, though crystal-clear, was distorted
And the whole thing smelled of sulfur.

The last glass scared me a little bit.
The lens was transparent, but it was blood red.
The handle was wooden, with a cross-beam, almost like a sword hilt.
For some reason, it seemed to me
In my dream
That this lens would show me the WHOLE truth
Not the par
tial
tru
th
...like the others.
The pieces of the truth were terrible enough;
How awful would the WHOLE truth be?

But I picked up the blood-red lens.
The lens of The Whole Truth.
And what I saw astounded me.

I saw the things that bring joy to my life: the people who love me,
My talents and my joys,
My happinesses and my comforts.
I saw the happy times of my childhood and my adulthood,
And I also saw the sad and lonely times.
I saw deaths, physical and emotional.
I saw my gaping flaws of character
That cause me to fail time and again.
And I saw the deep, dark depression that sometimes seeks to consume me.

I saw all of those things.
But it was as though they were covered with blood,
Overpowered by blood,
Eradicated by blood.
Made irrelevant.
Ancient history that never happened.
The handle was not just the hilt of a sword;
It was also something else.
And as the blood dripped down from the crossbeams
And covered my pathetic attempt at leading a good life
I knew that I was being cleansed,
Forgiven,
Regenerated,
Revitalized,
Given another chance.

And I knew I would fail again.
And again.
And probably many more agains.
But I knew that the blood-red lens would not only show me the truth,
But it would change that truth
And make me whole.

And then I woke up
And closed my Bible
And how about that?
It was all true


Copyright ©2009 by Michael Jones