The hem of heaven

I've lost track of time again. It's been happening constantly since I got here, this is the second time today in fact. He keeps telling me it's because I am imagining time, in fact we all were before we arrived. He says we've always been here and we also never have. I roll my eyes when he says this. His crinkle into laugh lines and he grins. “I never took you for a surrealist.”' “You used to have a better sense of humor.” He replied. This place changes us. Sometimes right away, and for others it takes longer, but it's not quite the same for anyone. Some get accustomed the moment they arrive and they cross the threshold into the court room. One glimpse of the throne and they break into song or dance, or sometimes acrobatics, or occasionally even spoken word. Everyone always enjoys seeing what the newcomers will do. At first I thought the excitement must die down after a certain point since the new keep coming in by the hundreds daily, but each one gets just as big a welcome as the next. When I stepped in and the light from the podium touched me I thought I was going to be consumed and I felt my throat began to close and my vision go dim. I was suddenly a well springing up in a desert of dry bones and a river and the wind that touched the weathered wastelands and sang in the trees on the day of Hosanna. I was the way that the songbirds could not contain their joy at sunrise and I was the rolling thunder in mourning of all those who had fallen. And I was also me, as much of myself as I had ever been or ever would be. I thought I wept forever at His feet but he as he reminds me constantly “forever is a moment and always and never.” “Besides, it wasn't any longer than anyone else does.” He stated as he distractedly tugged at a curtain on the towering window before him. It gave way and burst into a blooms of honeysuckle stretching up the cavernous palace ceiling. I thought it would be different here. I had pictured everyone in white robes with wings holding hymnals and standing up straight in never ending rows. I wasn't prepared for the creativity. The dancers, the acrobats, singers, speakers, marchers, painters, they never seem to stop creating more art. No one grows weary of it or runs out of ideas. Yesterday I watched an army of paintbrush wielding artists climbed the north tower and painted it in all the shades of red we had ever known in the old place. He joined them for a while and the crimson bathed the expanse between the palace and the sea in warmth as the sun set over us. I stood now at a window facing the stretching open fields that give way after miles to sandy beaches and then reach to crash into the ocean as it's waves dance in and out, to stroke the shore. Its not unlike the ocean we knew in the old place, except that its musical and alive somehow. It's movement is a dance and a symphony and it performs day and night in the presence of the tremendous Palace that we call home. The castle is too large for the words that we knew in the old place. I asked Him what it was called and he said it's name is “Joanna”. “Why?” I asked. “I knew a Joanna who was like this palace.” He said quietly. “I thought of her when I set the cornerstone.” “Is she here?” I inquired. His gaze met mine and I caught my breath. “No. But she will be.” The singing is getting loud again as I wander quietly down an empty hallway. I can hear the roar of laughter from the crowd in the court room. They have been dancing since dawn and everyone is ecstatic with excitement and energy. I don't know how many days I have been here. It may have been yesterday that I first arrived or maybe ten years. I can't tell anymore. Many of the others cannot remember the day they arrived or the old place or where any of were before this. It's as they've always been and always will be here with Him. I asked why I still remember and others don't, and why the longer we stay the harder it is to recall who we used to be, and why some of us have grown so accustomed to this place that they've begun to look like it somehow. “No one is told any story, but their own.” He said softly. “You're just quoting Clive!” I said angrily. “Clive quoted ME!” He retorted. It doesn't matter though. It doesn't matter who we used to be or what we used to carry with us. When we step into the light of the courtroom for the first time somehow all the layers fall away and what is left is a brother or sister. The way someone is your brother or sister when you are too young to know what anything is and all you know is that the warmth of them sleeping nearby wards off the dark shadows cast on your bedroom floor. And if they took a bite of your bagel it would somehow be less offensive than if a stranger did it. I love the evening when the air is heavy and sweet from the music that's been sung all day, and we all pour into the massive amphitheater and stand shoulder to shoulder and begin to sing in unison, each our own song and each our own voice, deafening and somehow flawless. He tells me we are trying to make the roof collapse, and one of these days we'll get it. I walk further down the deserted hall, serenaded by the sounds of the crowd as I wander deeper into the palace. I have never managed to explore the whole thing. He says I'll never find the end of it and even if I did, I still haven't seen the all the grounds outside. “Besides,” he said through a bite of apple, “I'm always adding to it you know...” In the old place it would have mattered that we spend so much time together. Others would have been envious. It doesn't exist here though. We all have as much of His attention as we need and it never seems that we have to wait. He says it's because there is no waiting and there never was. “I'm as much with them as I am with you.” A few days ago one arrived that I had known in the old place. Of course we all know one another here and there are no strangers but I recognized her. She had been so lonely. I watched as she stepped through the tremendous doorway and I gasped as she screamed with laughter and sprinted into the center of the room and toppled into Him at the foot of the throne. They lay on the floor shaking with laughter, the sound filling the room. Her voice was melodious as she chattered to Him, her gaze fixed on Him singularly. I watched them all night as they never tired of talking to each other, hand in hand as the celebration carried on. He has a way with the lonely. Somehow they cease to be what they were and become what they've always been. I sound like Him now. Hysterical laughter breaks my solitude as a group goes sprinting by me. They are playing tag again. This place has a way of bringing out the kid in us all. I keep on walking deep in the palace halls, it's endless structure unwinding as I wander into it. Time seems to stop and go on and on all at once. It's peaceful. In the old place my mind would have begun to nag if I had stayed too long in one place. Meditation would have given way to boredom or worry, or distraction but we don't have those things here. The stillness is a heavy blanket that settles over you and hushes the nagging. His voice is always heavy in the air, the whisper always tenderly filling the atmosphere. “come.” Always calling us closer, His presence filling up the space and shutting out the voices of the old place. At night when the stars are out it's even louder and when I close my eyes more of my memories give way. I lose a little more each day of the weight I used to bear. “There you are.” His voice breaks my silence. “I've been looking everywhere for you.” I smile as he approaches. He's dressed in a costume again. “Performing?” “I was a smashing hit, I tap danced.” “Flawlessly, I'm sure.” He moves closer to me. His gaze finding mine in the dimly lit courdoor. “The song is almost over” He whispers. Tears fill my eyes and slide down my cheeks as I fight back a sob. “I don't want to leave yet” I choke. “You never really leave you know.” He says warmly. “But I never was really here, was I?” I say through my tears. “Perhaps not...” He says as the palace walls begin to fade and the marble floor beneath us begins to fall away and hand in hand we tumble back to reality. “Perhaps you aren't here yet,” He says “but you will be.”