The Peacock 1031

I cannot remember when I last walked this route.  Likely the last time I was at Wreck Beach, maybe twenty years ago?  It was always a self-indulgent novelty for me, the rare time I went.  I wandered sometimes into the gay section by the Fraser River, and was more repulsed and scared off than titillated.  I am glad Carl managed to get away from there before sunset, which happens pretty soon.  I must say I am still feeling buoyed by this revelation of God's presence in the form of tongues and song.  I feel amazingly energized even after sitting down for just ten minutes.  Here is Marine Drive, the trees, and yes, I see him, Carl, looking around anxiously...

1030

 "Hi Francois."

"Where are you?"

"What do you mean, where am I".  And now I am laughing.

"It's quarter to eight."

And I glance at my phone screen and sure enough it is 7:47.

"Oh, sorry.  It is late."

"I made a huge stir fry and it should feed us for a couple of days.  Want me to leave some out for you."

"Yes, man, I am starving."

"Any word from Carl.  He's been gone all this time and we don't have each other's contact."

"Wait a minute, i just got a text from him, five minutes ago.  he says, "Chris, I am trying to escape from Wreck Beach. it looks like a butcher shop with all this naked flesh and I have to get out of here.  Someone told me I'm on Trail Six.  How do I get home from here?

"Better call him, right away".

"agreed."

"Carl, it's Christopher.  Where are you right now."

"I am just getting to the top of the trail."

"Don't move from there.  I will be there in fifteen minutes.  Stay there at the trail entrance..."

The Peacock 1029

 I can't seem to stop walking.  I must have already covered almost every trail in this forest.  The shadows are beginning to lengthen, and the leaves glitter like pieces of emerald dipped in gold.  My legs, my feet, are getting sore.  I am thirsty.  Why did I forget to bring water with me?  I haven't sung in more than an hour,  perhaps two hours, and the silence has been wonderful.  But can I still sing like that?  Will I have forgotten this language?  This must be like that Canadian in Mexico from Aaron's story that he shared with u a few days back, walking and singing beautifully in an unknown tongue.  I have to get in touch with Aaron, see if he will have coffee with me.  He could explain a thing or two.  And, yes, I am singing again, and the language, the words flow, and I haven't a clue what any of them mean.  It sounds perhaps a little like Persian, or Sanskrit.  I don't know, but it has a beautiful sound.  

Back on the campus now and here is the café where I used to work. They are still open, and a table outside would be nice.  I will order a bottle of perrier.  The server is a young man, perhaps Korean, friendly and likeable.  And now to look at my phone again which I haven't turned on since I left the house today.  A text from Francois.  He wants me to call him.  And a text from Carl...

The Peacock 1028

 Yes, I remember.  After Kenny's death, when my father started drinking, then the AA program he enrolled in, and then some friends he met there coming to visit, and soon every week, Wednesday evenings they would gather for prayer in the living room.  A friend he had made at AA was a charismatic Christian, and he introduced Dad to some people from his church, and then one evening they laid their hands on him and he was suddenly weeping with joy and babbling in an unknown tongue and then with my permission they did the same with me and...nothing.  I felt numb.  Then a woman there, a lady in her fifties spoke prophetically over me.  How could I have forgotten?  She said that I had received the gift of the Holy Spirit, but it would lie dormant for some years, some many years until the tree had grown to maturity and the fruit had ripened and then the living waters would flow out.  Or something to that effect.  And never have I felt such joy, never in my life could I have imagined such joy.  I walk now in ecstasy...

The Peacock 1027

 As I pass the towering douglas fir, hemlock and sitka spruce and cedar trees and the banks of salmonberry bushes still in wild magenta bloom I have suddenly gone silent.  There is something stirring, struggling to emerge, and in this place of no place and no time, I open my mouth and again song pours forth but in a strange music and a strange tongue I have never spoken or sung before, and it is so hauntingly beautiful that I have to keep singing and it tears its way out of my throat like a flock of imprisoned white doves finally released to their aerial dance and flight into the heavens and my voice rises, but not my voice but the voice of another proclaiming from my lungs the majesty of the Lord, with the doves,  and the man on the bike looks at me astonished and even he cannot stop me, and not even I can prevent this magic, this celestial power from ripping its sonorous beauty out into the surrounding air vibrating with light and mystery...

Years ago, my father and some of his friends, surrounded me in the living room of our house, placed their hands on me and prayed.  This can be none other than the baptism of the Holy Spirit...

The Peacock 1026

 And now song rips its way through me as I raise my voice to the raven.  A Christian Hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty"...I know that I sound good, I was often pressured in both parish churches to enlist in the choir and I did not want that kind of attention..."Early in the morning my song shall rise to thee", and it pours out sweet, strong and buoyant and the two young women walking by smile, and not with sarcasm.  I have not lost the magic, the power resides in me still, and I am its channel...."Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty..." and I hear other birds singing as I meld my voice with theirs..."God in three persons, blessed Trinity..."

The Peacock 1025

 I knew better than to tell the doctors.  They would have just increased my medications and left me a blathering drooling zombie, and I was not going to sacrifice any more of my mind in order to fulfill my obligations as a patient.  They had their diagnosis, their neat little box to pack me in, but this unity of dimensions, this merging of time, space and being, they would have dismissed as psychosis and they would likely have kept me in there another three weeks, then released me into a tertiary care facility.  But now that robin's singing pierces through and units me with the shining green leaves and the call of the raven overhead is my signal to watch and beware as I soar with the raven, and now I am its stomach filled with the putrefying remains of the dead squirrel it has just ingested.  The powerline trail is wide, like a gravel road in the bush and it will carry me further and further still.  A jogger runs past and his desperate gasping for air betrays his unwellness, his utter obsession with running and running and running and suddenly I am his legs and the stinking feet enclosed in his expensive runners that move with staccato force on the gravel.  His T shirt is a flaming magenta passion screaming out frustration and fury to every branch extending its hungry leaves to a cruel and benevolent sun....