Visions of the Church from the Futon: Part 1

After I closed my eyes to gain some rest on a restless, rainy evening I began to swirling in a slumbering darkness. A vision came to me in this state revealing three mice crouching on the rim of my glass. They looked into the beer-well with expectancy and wonder. Then they began to…well I would say drink, but they are mice after all, and it looked to be more of a liquid-nibbling of the beer. Suddenly (and in the way of St. Mark, I say immediately) the third and furthermost mouse tumbled into the intoxicating deep; accidentally or purposefully I cannot say, for he was a very small mouse with a very peculiar face. Nevertheless, he was trapped and all I could say was that he fizzled with translucent pleasure. The other two, seeing that their friend was in danger, looked on with perplexed jealousy. How could their comrade and fellow miniature felon leave them stranded with their aggravated nibbles, while he swallowed for dear life? After only a few suspended seconds passed, the inadvertent culprit mouse lay on the base of the empty glass with a satisfied glimmer on his face. His friends then tipped the glass and dragged him out. And as he stood (for in this vision, mice adroitly walk on two feet without concern for food or scraps—it is also these that cower over victuals) he embraced his once-lost friends and seemed to almost hold them up in love. This shocked them (for although they are mice they have read many articles about the effects of beverages on “scavenger beasts” as they came to consider themselves—more for the concept of being considered a beast than a scavenger, but their grasp on words was poor [after all, they are only mice and have never attended high-school], so they referred to themselves as “scavenger beasts”). They each took an arm of their consumptious friend over their shoulders (they were jealous not hateful) and as they walked, they realized it was they who couldn’t decipher their own steps, so the privileged mouse began to assist his friends and lift them from stumbling. They, then noticing this, refused his aid and concern (more from being embarrassed and ashamed, than from calculating themselves capable to walk without him). They then united (as it were, these two mice were always the ones arguing, yet they found cause to agree in this instance) and rushed upon their delighted friend, pushing him again into the now-empty glass and raising it as if they were the greatest of beasts. They cared not to stay and taunt their friend, for the sight of them spawned guilt in the very center of their little hearts, so they left shortly after with cold uncaring stares, as given from bitter friends, while he stared back hopeless and betrayed—leaving him jailed in the glass of his happiness, awaiting unlikely rescuers. Not too long thereafter, the unlikeliest of visitors approached the mouse, and his demeanor altered from that of one cooking a warm breakfast on a beautiful winter morning, to one hearing an egg negotiate with the kitchen floor. It was the sound of the cat purring at first that startled him, but when the cat had made several vain attempts at biting the base of the glass, the mouse leaned back once more and began burping with inimitable confidence and security. The jailed mouse represents the American Church. Shortly after an individual confesses Christ (or in some cases does so repeatedly) they are abandoned with invisible fears (yet no less real than glass). It is here that the Spirit of God reinforces our spiritual decision though it seemed to us, an undecided blessing. For though we may feel trapped and lonely, we are safe from he who seeks to destroy us, that is the evil one. The intoxicating passion of God's love is then the vestige and the virtue with which we should all embrace, uniting in love despite our glassy fears...(photo by: Tatsuya Sato)