I am against stealing as any Christian should be. My definition of stealing is taking something without asking the right person first. However, sometimes there are temptations that appear to be perfectly harmless… what if there is no one around to ask… or what if you don’t know who to ask. What is the value of the object? It’s easy to get lost in the legality of “defining” theft. Perhaps then it would be best to ask oneself, “why do I want to take this”. If the motive is covetousness… then clearly this is wrong. If it is out of survival or necessity? Would we still be judged?

A man charged me with stealing something from his home. He was a neighbor with a large home and property. I was in his home briefly but I had never visited him before. That very same day is when he noticed something was missing… he assumed I had taken the object since I was a stranger to his home. I honestly had no recollection of the object or of handling it.  My testimony was not enough to satisfy my neighbor so he called the police and I was arrested. There was no trial or judgement… I was immediately sentenced to one year of hardship.

My wife was also charged with stealing some money. I could not verify her wherabouts the day it had supposedly happened. She too was sentenced to one year of hardship with no chance of early release. I could not tell if she had actually stolen anything. I knew she would not survive alone and apart from everything… I can’t tell if I had caused myself to be accused of stealing so that we would stay together.

We were judged of the same crime and sent away to the same place which was somewhere in Central America. The land was harsh and forbidding. We were stripped naked and not given any shelter. We were forced to live this way for the entire year. I could see scars all over my wife’s body from insect bites or rashes. Our feet were lacerated by the rough terrain. We stank and hair had grown wildly all over our bodies.  My wife had surrendered to the prison… she could not live any longer in punishement. Had I not been there to encourage her… it surely would have been a death sentence.

By some miracle, we were allowed to leave after the year had been served but I had the impression that more time was required. We were allowed to approach our accuser to ask if we could be released from our sentence. Despite having left our place of punishment… we had not been allowed to clothe ourselves nor bathe. I was walking in the neighborhood and people would run away from me covering thier faces from the smell of my body and nakedness. No one woud listen to me as I was trying to ask which house was my accuser’s. Finally, a woman would speak to me from a distance and pointed the way.

I approached the house by the back yard and walked to the nearest door. Someone had been gracious enough to give us a towel to wrap ourselves… the wife and I. The man recognized me and allowed me in so that he would learn of why I was at his home. Looking around, I had the impression he was wealthy and had more items than he needed. Although I was allowed to speak, I felt as though he was not interested in what I had to say. I had the opportunity to ask if he would pardon us so that we would not have to serve the rest of our sentence. Prior to this I thought to ask something more important. Despite the fact that I honestly did not steal anything… I asked the man to forgive us of what we had done. The neighbor was unwilling to forgive us of anything.

I don’t even have your item.” I said. He replied, “You just gave it to your kids when you got bored with it.”

“Look at what has been done do us. Surely the punishment did not fit the crime. Surely you had insurance… you have more now than what you say is missing.” I said. The neighbor was not impressed.

I looked at my wife and new that we would have to return to our prison. I didn’t bother to ask if our sentence could be shortened. The neighbor’s heart was hardened. My wife began to weep and I felt a lump form in my throat. I felt so filthy.

I keep having dreams about the end. Maybe I’m just too into these Terminator movies but this latest was the first with vampires in them. It would seem they survived the world’s destruction but now openly roamed in packs looking for people to eat. I was being hunted down and eventually was caught. Knowing my fate… I gave up and stopped fighting. Before I was killed… I was forced to watch the pack kill some others that had been captured.

Then something crazy happened. As if dreaming about vampires and the end of the world isn’t crazy enough… one of the vampires was toying with some blonde female and treated her like a scared child. He was saying stuff like “Let’s not upset her… we shouldn’t be so frightening. I know! We could SING!” Now I’m watching the whole feeding frenzy scene turn into some broadway production of Night of the Living Dead. All the vampires (except the one holding me down) exited the room and came in one by one. Each of them sang a line from some song I didn’t recognize to which they layed down next to the blonde and took a bite. A second, a third and maybe a fourth dramatically entered the room doing the whole “spirit finger” thing with twists and twirls while singing a line. I distinctly remember in my terror thinking… “ok, this is a musical now?!”

The pack of vampires seemed to be having a wonderful time until the indigenous pack approached to kick them out  thier territory. It was going to be a gang fight. Maybe I wasn’t going to die after all? Maybe I could get away. I don’t know. It was around this point that I woke up and realized I was going to be late for work.

But it looked man-made. It was the end of the world and people were being chosen. Not everyone was going and some were actually running away from this city that floated in the sky thousands of miles away. It blocked the light of the sun it was so large. It was built on a rectangular foundation and there were majestic towers towards the center.

People were taken up and they could fly away to the city. I felt as though I were in two places… on the Earth watching the people rise up into the sky and disappear and then in the sky-city watching them descend to their new home. The me that was still on Earth was afraid to be left behind. But then I noticed the children lingering watching the sky and wondered why they were still on Earth. Everyone was in a panic and some mobs of people were gathering and looked as though they might start something… they were blocking the end of the street where I saw the children.

Somehow, I’m now on a motorcycle… some type of sport bike…and I’m trying to leave the city on Earth. The mob of people are going to block my exit but I pop a wheelie and roar through them using the bike to plow through. Just as I clear the mob I see the children on the side of the road watching me. I slam on the brakes and stop to pick them up. They can’t be more than six years old  so I sling them around to the back of the bike and say “hold on tight and keep your heads behind me”. For some reason I felt invulnerable as though I was a juggernaut. Nothing would keep me from getting these kids out of town.

Round about this time I see my wife and I’m no longer on the bike. We are running together in a strange place where there is much vegetation. We approach some type of elegant looking structure with mosaic walls and fountains and hanging vines. I feel as though we are supposed to live here or reside in this place for some time. There is a wall we must pass over and I worry that my wife’s physical condition is going to prevent us from being able to get inside. Then for no apparent reason I think that we can fly but I’m not certain of it. So I tell my wife, “I’ll go up first and then you follow.” I’m pretty sure I can fly but I’ve never seen the wife do it. So I figure if I can get across… I can help here up from the top and then lower her down. As it turns out I outright leap to the top of the wall and I think MIKA did too. More amazing than that was the dismount. I jumped down into a fountain… thinking for some reason the water would help break my fall… but just as I was about to touch… I stopped midair and then gently floated down to the floor. I looked up to wave my wife down, getting ready to catch her, but then she did the same thing. She jumped off the wall but just before she touched the water… she stopped midair and then gently floated to the ground.

This is how I knew I was in heaven. But then I knew I was dreaming and understood that Heaven is probably going to be unimaginably better that this. The flying part was what I enjoyed the most. It has been a very LONG time since I’ve had a flying dream. I used to have them very frequently when I was a child. I had the freedom to soar high into the air and dive down like a falcon. I couldn’t always control where I was going but it was still a a fun experience. My dreams recently have been more acrobatic where I can do high jumps and front spins or back spins like some type of martial artist. Flying has been a rare event. I’m sad that I don’t dream about flying as much. I figure its because I feel like there is so much weight holding me down in real life. My heart wants to collapse inward from all of the pressure.

I dreamt that my family was awarded a large sum of money and it was to be evenly divided amongst us. It started out by me going to visit my parents at their house but they were not home. Instead, a woman was there …already inside as if she were a guest. This woman greeted me and asked if I had been notified yet? It’s about right here that I expected to hear some tragic story of how my parents were dead, dying or lying in some hospital nearby.

Thankfully, it was nothing like that. This woman was something like a trust officer and she was sent to hand deliver me a stack of cash. The sum was somewhere around $18,500 after dividing the award three ways and paying income taxes (of course.) I’m assuming the original amount was like $100,000 or something close. I distinctly remembered the … RELIEF of knowing all of my impending bills were going to be taken care of. This would be enough to pay of my credit card and second home mortgage! That would save me about $300 a month!

Of course, I always figure out a way to muck up a good thing. I stood there motionless for a minute… thinking of all the debt that I could repay. Then… thinking a bit more intently… I realized that I did not earn this money. I felt as though I would owe someone a debt of some kind by accepting this gift. I thought about how I could not say that I was being independent and self-sufficient.

I told the woman that I had to refuse the cash award. Partly because I had no idea of where or who this had come from. Partly because it was money I had not earned. And partly because I didn’t like the idea of owing someone.

Ain’t I just crazy?

I’m walking down a creaky hallway of an old college or school. Passing by the classrooms, there is a door open and I can hear a professor speaking to his class about poetry. It sounds interesting so I hesitate a moment to hear more… then my name is called out and I’m asked what the author’s inspiration might have been. The professor is whats-his-name from Lord of the Rings… Gandalf. Again, I’m asked to explain the meaning of the poem but I’m stammering and stuttering… trying to think of something to say that sounds intellectual. As a last resort, I start talking about one of my own writings and the inspiration for it.

Gandalf laughs and tells the class that I’m not understanding the question. After all… I did write the poem to which they were all studying. Bewildered… I look at the note book in my hand which the title of the passage written on the front page said “I will live to see tomorrow“. Then one of the students turns their book around for me to read today’s poem and sonofabitch… lookit what it says!

Yeah, I was published.