Chapter Two
I’m thirsty.
Yet I’m not thirsty.
Maybe I should just get up and go to the bathroom, but I don’t have to go to the bathroom.
Am I dreaming?
Then just wake up.
How can I be having a rational conversation with myself while I’m asleep?
You lazy slack sucker, just throw the covers off, get up, go to the bathroom, come back, look at the clock, set your brain to know what time to wake up tomorrow morning, and get started.
But here I lay.
I looked around.
Everything seemed vast, beyond anything I could explain. It was dark and bright at the same time. There were colors like the rainbow, yet they were indescribable. At the same time everything seemed bland and gray.
What do I choose it to be?
It virtually is.
I touched myself, trying to force myself awake, but I couldn’t feel my own touch.
I looked around and saw the earth far off in the distance. In a split second I was there. I circled it like a space capsule in orbit. Then I decided to go to the other end of the universe…
…and instantly I was there.
This is the weirdest dream I’ve ever had.
Yet I can’t seem to wake up.
Then I started feeling and hearing, at the same time, a rumble.
Something was approaching.
Something I couldn’t comprehend.
At first I couldn’t tell whether I was hearing it or feeling it. It seemed to pass through me instead of around me. It wasn’t the rumble of an earthquake. It wasn’t thunder. It wasn’t an explosion.
It was something altogether different.
The closer it came, the more I realized I wasn’t simply hearing a sound.
I was becoming aware of a presence.
At first I could not make out what I was looking at. It wasn’t a man. It wasn’t light. It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before.
As he came closer, every instinct I possessed screamed for me to run. His presence was overwhelming. It wasn’t anger that frightened me.
It was authority.
He stood motionless, yet he seemed more powerful than an army.
If every Marine who had ever lived had been gathered into one soul, standing perfectly disciplined before his Creator, I still don’t believe they would have possessed the authority this being carried without speaking a single word.
His eyes were unlike anything I had ever imagined. They seemed to look completely through me. Not just into my thoughts, but through every decision I had ever made, every lie I had ever told myself, every act of courage, every act of cowardice, every hidden motive I had ever carried.
There was no possibility of deception.
For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to stand completely exposed.
I wanted to look away.
I couldn’t.
Yet the strangest part was this.
I felt no hatred from him.
No contempt.
No cruelty.
Only absolute truth…
…and absolute compassion.
Somehow both existed at the same time.
His strength terrified me.
His kindness made me want to walk toward him.
Somehow I had an intense desire to touch him. Curiosity overwhelmed me, yet so did his presence. He was immense. He seemed the size of a skyscraper, yet at the very same time no larger than a tall basketball player.
How can that be?
How can this entire environment be one thing and yet another at exactly the same time?
Then he began to speak.
His voice rumbled like a mountain. It rolled like thunder echoing through a deep canyon, each word seeming to shake the cliffs until the snow surrendered and drifted silently to the valley below.
Yet at the very same time his voice was soft.
Firm.
Exceptionally well pronounced.
Every word rolled effortlessly from his lips. There was no hesitation. No uncertainty. No stutter. Every syllable was distinct. Crisp. Perfectly timed.
I had never heard anyone speak like this.
It wasn’t simply a voice.
It was as though every word carried both absolute authority and absolute peace at the same time.
Then he simply stated,
“Why are you here?”
I stood there in disbelief.
How was I supposed to answer this?
I had no idea why I was here.
He questioned me again.
“Why are you here?”
Somehow my soul stirred.
I understood the question.
Yet I didn’t.
I didn’t even know what my response was supposed to be.
But somehow…
I did.
I looked inside my own soul.
It was as though I could rip my chest open, remove my own heart, and examine it as I stood before this incredible being.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t trying to answer someone else’s question.
I was trying to answer my own.
The silence seemed to last forever.
Then he spoke again.
“Did you not ask for the Lord’s guidance as you wrestled this evening with the story you were writing… the series of stories, May the Scales Fall Off Our Eyes?
Had you not reached the point where you felt defeated, not knowing how to overcome the obstacle before you?
Did you not go to your bed seeking the Lord in prayer, asking Him for direction?
Did you not struggle for hours, unable to find sleep?
Then tell me, Marine…
Why are you here?
Why are you standing before me?”