Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise,
in the metropolis of God, his high mountain.
--Psalm 48
Be of good; it is I; be not afraid
--Mark 6:50
The journeying from Capital Of Israel to the California's wilderness took exactly thirty days. The head didn't enquiry during the observation to the sou'-west or nor'-east of Antelope Valley and Spring Canyon Road where huge scenic high and mounts faded strongly into a blue-white sky. There were the answers to the sound of the driller machines excavation deepened into the farinaceous dirt and the baleful holes through the foursquares of canons a hundred paces down the road.
My thought to come up to this scattered portion had emerged during the last visit in Babylon, where I had made the same journeying that Abraham had done from Ur to Noph. Tired by the achromatic ideas of anxiousness that there was another topographic point to happen the mental image of God, I had spent the afternoon at supplication and wanted to travel back to Mountain Mount Sinai that evening. When I decided to name off, I was in a deep daze and doubt. I fingered the Book and read Psalm 73. Shutting to the end, I made another stop.
But as for me, it is good
to be near God.
I have got made the Autonomous Godhead my refuge;
I will state of all your deeds.
But somehow I felt I was losing something else. Iodine knew it was all right to experience like this, and there was a hush that was holding me. Iodine ran to Ephesians and reached our versicles 16.
In improver to all this,
take up the shield of faith,
with which you can snuff out all the flaming
pointers of the wicked one.
And then slowly as a great lover, I was there adjacent to Hebrews, "And since we have got a great priest over the house of God, allow us pull near to Supreme Being with a sincere bosom in full self-assurance of faith, having our Black Maria sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty scruples and having our organic structures washed with pure water".
After that I took nil for my journeying as Saint Luke have said to us. I felt good but the thought had strengthened me beyong what I would anticipate in Mt. Mount Sinai after my last lesson. I went back to Jerusalem. I had thought the thought of Golden State would travel away and my last preparation for the priesthood could be the chief ground to hold. But still.
"This is the fate of those who trust in themselves", I told myself, having in head Psalm 49; and I followed it with unfastened purpose.
The first phrase of my anxiousness passed when I telephoned the Golden State Office of Tourism for a complete information package of the metropolises and towns, but most of import about the Golden State mountains. It was a unsafe step, and I became aware that here was the solution of congratulations and God, as my friends Pert, Joran, and my Negro spiritual instructors had said about the assemble. It weighed on me so I accepted it completely. But I felt I could not possibly travel directly from metropolis walls in Jesus' clip to the Old City without saying adieu to my instructors Huld Behistta and Bloss Nippavris. As I did, I remembered my first walking through the City of Saint David and Fish Gate, which took it three calendar months to complete. Learning that Alderfonio, my hutkeeper in Hinnom Valley would travel rapidly there was that echo: The Samaritans would not welcome him because he was on his manner to Jerusalem, I was certain he'd happy to see me. It was like a pureness snip because all were there and smiled at me. Associate In Nursing ambiance of peace and Negro spiritual depth really lifted me that moment.
That nighttime I was in the company of God. My dream, and myself were portion of it. I was not exhausted. God's spirit and His lovely presence was all over me. Iodine was listening His world, a human race of intelligence that mattered if you are a physician or a genius. How many hours I spent in His company I did not know, but it was late when the sun so pleasant. I thought it was another morning. It wokes me up and I felt in a high mood.
After I received the information from the Golden State Office of Tourism in Sacramento, I did not recognize it was four calendar months since my last petition for my priesthood -- and to be accepted for the first lesson in Assyrian Asshior's school; but my instructors told me before this idea of you could be answered by the consciousness of yours, you will be free to come up back. I was about now state him that these ideas were portion of my training, but his right finger stood up as a cross and his voice seemed to come up from the Bible plus God's in progress disclosure through the traditional moving ridge of coming "Come out of this, you wicked spirit!"
I received everything from Sacramento, but the most of my dreamings were of the mountain sites. I chose one mountain that I knew I was going to see God: the Miracle that He had foreseen one one thousands and thousands old age back -- it will be April 3rd. Up to now I was calmed.
I arrived at midnight this clip at Los Angeles International Airport and spent the residual of the nighttime at a motel. Iodine read all the inside information about the maps of the Office of Tourism had sent me. I had my last breakfast on the lodge and in the first visible light of morning time I left the motel.
With a cane, a back pack filled with the Bible, a bottle of pure H2O from the Lake Urmia, and a hundred greenness menthol go forths from Hinnom Valley, my hutkeeper had given me. One individual down the hallway told me that I was on the right way before I attain Santa Clarita Hills. So I passed Santa Clarita Hills and I kept walking through the street and avenue, as Paul's trip to Damascus.
Keep me safe, Type O God.
For in you I take refuge.
It was a long walk, 116 miles. I began to acknowledge metropolises from the maps and towns marked. March Vista, Swtelle, Occident Los Angeles, Westwood, Bel Air, William Tecumseh Sherman Oaks, San Fernando Valley, Valencia, and Pico Canyon where I slept three hours.
The adjacent morning, very early, I began to walk, my head on God. Significantly, the thought popped up in presence of me. Five hours later, I walked past San Francisquito and deep into the rocks.
As I got near to Dry, the greenish wood of Los Angeles was covered with the wet of the last eventide and the visible light of the houses below. Then I saw the high mountain, pure rock, and sublime. I could not wait for the natural visible light of the sun, which the lone Supreme Being knows. I raced toward it, finding myself climbing and climbing.
I became a pool filled with feeling and unsafe creatures. The nighttime was all over me. Thinking about it, Iodine began to experience that I had finally, really seen the stars, which seemed exactly the same as I had seen them in Jerusakem and Damascus, closed to me. I never have got got see too many of them so close, where God, I knew, was there watching me!
I was waiting for all those exciting meanings; to have the truth acknowledged by my visit. Are Supreme Being here really? Volition Supreme Being be willing to come up before the twenty-four hours arrives?
Days passed.
Months came and went.
This morning, however, I knew there was no grass when I arrived 90 years before. It was warm, and there was a snake. It was very surprised to see me. Iodine did not cognize about it in the first place. There was nil else; both, I thought, were enjoying our company and the rich texture of the grass and the visible light of the sun, which small by small was coming behind the horizon.
I took one of my hundred leaves of absence and drained them with a little water. I noticed I had only 10 left. While I was there, feeling so alone and high, I noticed also that I was really high. On the top of the Mountain Rock, where the subdivision of Palmdale and Lancaster took the route of limitation, one could possibly see the square and the holes below down there.
I began to pray. Supreme Being will come up to-day. I was stunned at these words and at the sight of all these bouldery mountains: brown, black, blue, yellow, and obviously gold. They were by the layers and old age still that Supreme Being will be there to-day.
I kept praying. Please, God, come, see me now.
A voice says, "By his knowledge, my righteous retainer will justify".
But Please, God, come. I necessitate to see you and to state you I'll follow my priesthood.
It was the 93rd day, inhabited by the natural peeling of military units underneath the eternal sky, it was soon brought to me. Type A human face appeared around the layers. His introduction was already caught by a glimpse, then, by a bantam voice. What are you doing here, mister?
"I wait for my friend God."
"Here? In this place?"
"Yes. Here. In this place."
It sounded as though he had a idea but he did not state it. He stepped adjacent to me and sat. "I desire to see him, too, mister."
I invited him to take one of my menthol leaves. He smiled and took one. Like two couples in love, we looked at each other and smiled at our thoughts. I understood them, and he understood mine.
God will come.
Hours passed. Gradually one by one, the people from the vale and the mainland came. I watched them: women, mothers, sisters, immature men, old people, teens, and people and people -- all smiling. All were funny to happen an introduction to our thoughts: Supreme Being is coming, Our Supreme Being is coming here. I understood what they were feeling when I answered them. He is here, and He's coming.
Was this just a portion of approval meeting, portion of Supreme Being himself? They make not care because they were certain Iodine had told them the truth. April 3rd. One hundreth-day and a third. Supreme Being is coming.
I stood up, giving away half of my menthol leaves. Water was passen around, and felicity had returned to the mountains. A welcomed kid was playing the transverse flute and the serpents began dance in presence of us. Happiness is here, too, so Supreme Being will be among us.
All were smiling and external respiration very heavily because the nighttime was ending, too.
The last birds from the wood below have got passed north, curling and winging in their fast motion, spectacle dance. I cannot be dennied on God's approval and the achromatic clouds above. This beauty seemed to have got a mysteriously throw on all of us. At this hour, the California's sun was alive, reddish as a combat firedrake behind the dark clouds tthat apocalyptically see themselevs as mid-nurse. The transmutation was like a broad lane of the sky, a Heaven mass with satisfied insights. All of it seemed below, lying on the grass, wishing for the east rainfalls that were shady bouldery mountains. What a fantastic contrast! It contrasted with the dimensional ideas that truly seemed to little before the melted space around us!
I don't cognize if it was the Earth or the space or the degree put of dispersed land scene or the scene of the sun that was so cryptic in the attraction or our stay. It was a great movement, I told them. The animate beings like us have got the same bantam piece of life. Supreme Being is all. I saw the rocks, the works as an ocean in Capital Of Syria filled with the enormousness of my contemplation. I was certain it was more than than the continent that was still beyond the mountains.
It was God.
As I stood up firmly, I smiled at them. "God was here, wasn't He?" I asked.
"I saw Him!" a adult male cried.
A friend's friends, perhaps, as if they agreed to me, saying boldly, "I squeezed God's hand!"
"Me, too! It was soft."
Then, slowly, I began to climb up down. I learned my lesson, my thrust of love isn't competition -- but the word of my teachers.
You have got the desire of seeing, but you must make bold to dispute anyone except you. God's all! For that Iodine cannot state anything else. Just I smiled, sitting in the 2nd social class cabin to Jerusalem. Below, the clouds, and above me this flying thing, God, the Supplementary Giver.
Biblical Notes:
Psalm 73:28
Ephesians 6:16
Israelites 10:21 v22
Mark 5:8
Issaiah 52:11