Sometimes a dream can speak to one of your innermost truths. My dream last night was one of those dreams. Both C.S. Lewis and Sheldon Vanauken write about the surviving spouse of a Devoted Christian becoming jealous of God. It is not that your departed spouse loves you less – it is that she loves God more. Well last night I discovered I’m jealous of God. My beloved Pat, in the arms of Christ has found C. S. Lewis’ God and Us.
The dream started with Patricia voicing her love for a new fellow. She wanted me to move out of our bedroom, so he could move in with her – I could have the guest bedroom. Pat said she still loved me but loved this new fellow more. I was extremely jealous and broke into our bedroom and saw him in the dishevelled bed. Then he turned to face me, and I realized he was Christ. How could she not love him more than I. I remembered a stanza in her poem to me on our anniversary in 1970:
And this long miracle is to discover
the inmost me and you,
to nurse no longing for another,
to forge the soul and its desire together
gently, openly and forever.
Then C. S. Lewis advising Vanauken came to mind, that his departed wife was further along on the road to God and Us and could help Sheldon find the oneness with God that all Christians seek. C. S. Lewis wrote to Vanauken, “That is, I think the union between the risen spouses will be as close as that between the soul and its own risen body. But (and this, as you see, is the snag) the risen body is the body that has died. (‘If we share this death, we shall also share this resurrection’) And so – as you say in one of your postscripts – your love for Jean must in one sense, be ‘killed’ and God must do it.’ …. But of course, it’s all in the text ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom . . . and all these other things shall be added unto you.’ “Okay this situation was necessary on the Grief journey and is harking back to the beginning of our love. Our love is eternal and we both shall love God more.
In life Pat and I were so united our lives were one. We wanted the same things, planned for the same things, liked the same things, wanted to go to the same places, had the same goals and objectives, loved each other and believed the same things. Of course, God would be that other.
There is no being called; God does NOT take us; He accepts us. Give up this idea that there is NO place for you in Heaven. Pat is in Christ’s arms preparing our place in Heaven. As she wrote:
“You love me royally, as I love you,
seated together in our garden Kingdom,
keeping up our silent conversation,
clothed in robes of joy of every hue.”
Yes, our love was unique and rare. God sees all. He sees how the three of us – Pat, me, and our quiet love – became the one triune entity we were meant to be. Garden Kingdom, Garden of Eden, Heaven, all three are one; we were headed there from the first.
“For us, our royal love has had no parallel:
It rooted, grew, and like a miracle
spread to the garden where in now we sit,
Clothed in the fragrance of fulfillment.”
We are still on that journey to discover the inner self in each other. No there is no one who knows me or Pat better than ourselves and each other. This dream was one of those “silent conversations,” our quiet love and our always being together saw to that.
We will be reunited into the one that our marriage made us; marriage in heaven is a unity of souls in the image of the Divine Trinity. It is Christ Himself not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. And after all He is in Heaven and married – to the Church. So, there is marriage in Heaven and Christ Himself is part of the Trinity of marriage. I am sure I can live contentedly through any crisis that might come, as long as I know I can depend on Pat’s presence in me. Pat was and is the only woman for me, and without her I would be all disorganized fragments of grief. Love is stronger than Death. Christ makes it so.