Revelation

How do you greet revelation?

Mostly, I ignore it. Revelation moves in, then moves out. Mostly, it's months or years before I notice its movements.

Relevation is the subtle ingredient of awareness. Sometimes tough to hear in a noisy, media infested world. Sometimes difficult to embrace because it is so honest, so direct, so tough on illusion. Sometimes its patience lulls you to an easy place where you think you have all the time in the world to get back to it when, you know, it works best for you.

Revelation is about what's becoming, not what's been left behind. Which means its second-act is Mystery. And who really wants our play to go there from here.

Sometimes revelation breaks into life in a way that is impossible to ignore. Like when my wife called and said Those Words about our son: "He has cancer."

Sometimes it comes with a question that followed Those Words, "If it was time to take your boy, would he have cancer with a ninety-eight percent cure rate?"

Sometimes revelation hangs around long enough that you notice its greeting is all about life you cannot even imagine, like life ahead with a new spouse or partner, or with a new child. Something so good it makes you wonder, Am I worthy?

Or maybe it's telling you something's not right. Maybe its greeting is about a dead-end career or a stale relationship or a dear long-held belief or a deadly addiction. Something's dying; there's no energy; life in you or around you is draining away. Maybe you don't notice and you die or live a life without any life.

Sometimes revelation is a slow burn that creates just enough smoke and flame you can't help but notice. Maybe it's a business deal or some other hope stone that rolled off a tall cliff and you say the words my friend once said after getting swept up innocently in a good-deal-gone-real-bad, criminally-bad: "This is big trouble."

And maybe revelation pays its call and can't cut through the power and the glory and the omnipotence. As in There's No WMD Here. With Mission Accomplished the potent and powerful shrug and respond Then Glorify Elsewhere. And revelation moves on. Leaving the power and the glory and the potent in a boiling pot of cable television talking heads, moving no one, nowhere.

Revelation sometimes has two words serving up its alert: Holy Smokes or Holy Hannah or Holy Whatever-from-the Gutter.

When I hear them, revelation is nearby. It's in the house. My house. When I hear them I know the bets I placed on hope and fear, belief and unbelief, life and death are being called. Those words mean the jackpot of awareness is somewhere nearby.

But, here's the thing, maybe revelation's always been in the house.

What if it's me who moves in and out?

Maybe greeting revelation and letting it greet me means I'm finally home.

How do you greet revelation? What words call you home? Where do you go from there?