Awakened

Written by Peter Lanier

“Your soul once sat on an easel on my knee.

For ages I have been sketching you

With myriad shapes of sounds and light;

Now awake, dear pilgrim,

With your thousand swaying arms

That need to caress the sky.”

-Hafiz

Awakened.

Not long ago, a ragged band of Desanka members joined a gathering in the foothills of North Carolina. The gathering was called Three Days of Light. The weather was uncomfortably hot. The nights were full of pounding, bass-thumping music that did not stop until well after sunrise. There were moments when I felt the opposite of awake: tired, dehydrated, cranky, outside of where I was comfortable.

Yet I can’t help but remember the moments of awaken-ness that came upon me, and not just me, but many pilgrims like myself seeking truth and hungry for love. These moments sneaked up behind me and before I knew it I was chest deep in a spirit-river of connection, love, and strange joy. Strange, because meeting a stranger out in the wilderness, a person who without even speaking makes my spirit sing, always leaves me grateful but bewildered.

There was one person I remember most, whose name I’ll leave out. He was old, gray-bearded, but I don’t think I’ve ever met someone his age who carried as much youthful, innocent joy. He asked for a dream interpretation, and it became clear almost right away this was a man who loved God. I doubt he was a Christian. His love, like a mountain stream, followed a wayward course through untracked wilderness. He discovered his connection to the Spirit through nature and through writing poetry, and somehow, through the long, heavy years of life, this spark of pure joy had been kept alive inside him. Actually, I did know how, because I could feel it flowing out of him in abundance: it was the gracious Love of the Spirit, the same that spoke to him in his dreams. The encounter awakened me to a sense of wonder, and perhaps more than anything else, I saw in him a picture of myself. A picture, perhaps, of the kind of young-soul I could choose to be if I let Grace have its way with me.

In our dream-space, our little hovel of light and love that we set up at festivals like this, we always meet a seemingly-endless parade of pilgrims just ready to throw their “thousand swaying arms” upwards to caress the sky. They are ready to be awake. They need, more than anything else, a revelation of the nature of God, for many carry deep wounds. They need a touch of Love, for their wounds have often gotten the best of them. They need to be told the truth: they are loved and there is a divine plan for their life.

The hard part is being there, in the sweltering heat and noise, and being, above all, willing to lay down our lives for the sake of being present to the suffering of strangers. But what I keep discovering is that once I sit down with them, they are no longer strangers, but brothers and sisters, even if our faith traditions are vastly different. God called us both to that moment in space and time for the purpose of Love. The Spirit knits us together, and in that space flows healing, grace, mercy, hope, and encouragement.