Barefoot dreaming,
Standing on the sand,
I only saw Him once.
Could he be only mortal?
About to correlate
The past and future man?
Anessa could feel herself slipping into slumber. Somewhere between the realization of the gentle beat of her heart and the foggy film of her winding brain, she began to dream.
She was quite alone, as we all seem to be in dreams. Alone, and yet involved Anessa stood atop a rocky hill, overlooking the sea. The lapping waters licked the shore, as a mother cat preens her newborn kittens. A short distance from the water’s edge, a slender man stood gazing out to sea. The man seemed totally wrapped in his own thoughts. His flowing white robe swirled and swaddled him in a fragrant breeze. A sudden gust of ocean air then separated his earthy brown hair into ringlets about his straight and sturdy shoulders, as frothy sea water bathed his feet in golden sand and wove tangled seaweed through his toes. This perfect picture of serenity was complete Anessa thought.
Anessa felt calm beyond belief, and at peace at last from the torments of life. The stranger in radiant white light raised his hand to the sun, sending rays of warmth into the atmosphere that reached Anessa on the hill. She didn’t understand, but she wasn’t afraid. A feeling of fulfillment and love enveloped her body as she watched the young man below glowing like a lightning-bug on a summer night.
In another corner of her brain the dream continues. Anessa sees her house; her loved ones are all inside. Visitors had come to call, and they were looking for Anessa. No one knew where she was, and no one seemed concerned, except the visitors who proceeded to look for her. The faceless visitors dressed in sparkling clean white robes mildly searched for Anessa among her familiar surroundings.
The setting now becomes the beach again. Anessa had made her way down the hill to get a closer look at the man at water’s edge, but in an instant he was gone. Anessa is saddened because she wanted to talk with him about her troubles. Why, she wondered, did she feel oddly close to this man? And where did he go?
Anessa sleeps on, hours roll-by magically. Seemingly, unconscious, her darting eyeballs relay perfectly painted images which reel her into the next phase of the mystery.
Still aware like a sleepwalker’s trudge through the backdoor, Anessa knows the visitors are about to discover her on the beach. Anessa’s pulse quickens, but not in fright, only expectation. She is excited and resolved to join their entourage for she suspects the barefoot stranger leads the way to the promise land.
Mesmerized, Anessa calmly reclines into a stretched-out sheet fluttering near-by, each corner is held tightly by one of four gentle visitors she’d seen before searching her home. As she lay suspended in midair on billows of cool wind and white linen cloth, she feels as if she were being caressed in the arms of a soft fluffy cloud. Off in the distance the young stranger from the beach beckons as he ascends a slightly blurred winding staircase through the clouds, and the visitors and Anessa drift upward into the heavens.
Anessa Miller died that night; she was ninety-five years old: a dedicated Christian lady who worshiped the Lord with all of her heart. But, before she died, she awoke to tell me this strange and wonderful story of what she believed was Jesus and his followers. Anessa explained she so wanted to be part of his group. I am certain she got her wish that night, as she resumed her uninterrupted sleep into eternity.
