I was sitting in church at about age 15 when I suddenly had a very odd mental picture. (I thought of it as a prophecy back then).
I was walking through a large, dark cave when I spotted some good friends from school stuck in spider webs that stretched from the ceiling to the floor and back again. I went to help them, only to get stuck in the web myself. The more I struggled, the more I stuck to the web.
A few moments later, I was suddenly free of the web and standing in the mouth of the cave once again.
At the time, I interpreted this thought/mental picture in a fairly typical, religious way. Most of my friends at the time were not actively Christian. They may have sporadically attended as children, but they didn't identify as a Christian in the same way I did. I thought of this mental picture as a warning for me, as much as I loved and cared about them, not to get too close to as I tried to lead them back to God. Their sins could become my own if I wasn't careful, if I wasn't sure to remain good.
This is the sum of their badness : one smoked cigarettes. two were sexually active (although one of them ended up marrying her partner after graduation). a few sometimes failed to turn down alcohol at parties.
I look back now and laugh. And also cringe. I'd like to portray myself as someone who always questioned what I was taught, who never turned a judgmental eye to those who occasionally failed to be as good as we were supposed to be in that time and place...I was not. I did not.
And yet that word-picture still captures me. Someday, perhaps, I will know a different meaning for it.
(Photo credit.)
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2 comments:
its interesting to hear your thoughts on this now. i remember at the time, this picture was upsetting to you, as you cared a lot about your friends. i think you also saw them as frozen one time? as if they were so cold they couldn't move. both pictures show me that you have a lot of compassion for others.
I'd forgotten about that.
Thanks. :)
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