Dreaming Together at the End of the World 4/7

That's What She Said

Discernment for our next steps together. In this dream, John imagines God and God’s people forever united. The imagery involves a bride/groom and a new city, with “beautiful” used as a descriptor. God in this vision erases death, mourning, crying, pain, and also tenderly wipes tears out of eyes. This is God making everything new; the old order that felt so impossible to unravel or escape from, that felt so impossible to repair or untangle, is subverted with finality. What is it to dream of such a fixed finality of perfection and beauty from a place of hopelessness, chaos, victimization, marginalization, and powerlessness? What is it for us to dream concretely about what God getting everything God wants looks like (not just temporary relief but a future fully and finally made new)?

In this dream, John, who’s clearly been through hardship, imagines a situation in which the Lamb, the not-powerful, peaceful, gentle one, shepherds those who have suffered. What was it for John (possibly a refugee?) to witness a divine community in which everyone had everything they needed? What was it for John to imagine the one who had suffered (the Lamb) as the caregiver for the ones who suffer? What does this do to hierarchy? What is it today for the tormented and suffering to wear their suffering as robes for all to see— and allow themselves to be comforted and cared for in community? Or for those who have suffered to provide that community for others?

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