From the Galley to the Windshield

There is a way that my body flatlines where there is nothing between me and God.

Sometimes, I find this space between the white noise of a window seat, but recently it has been in the cacophony of clanking dishes. It is a simple, galley kitchen — unimpressive to most, spacious to urban dwellers. It is nothing special: no mountainside or candlelit church. It is at first a void, then it the waters churn, and the hovering Spirit of the Lord comes.

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day” (Genesis 1).

It is a choreography where my thought patterns dance. Mere articulations fall empty outside of a concept of the miraculous. I see a Kingdom, and I hear its heavenly melody drifting - hovering - accumulating - raining on the galley walls. Colors come, and names do, too. Words of promises fulfilled and troves of hope fill my mind. I see decades in moments. It is where I flatline, and my lungs breathe His presence. It is where I come alive.

He meets me in the galley.

I lift what I see in wordless prayers back to Him. It is the choreography – the dance of the Divine. I see Him moving, and I move, too. Sometimes, though, I wonder if it those thoughts are actually utterances or wisdom or gleams of the prophetic. Is it just my imagination? Is it God? Both?

The Word of the Lord Came.

Earlier this week, I was on a west coast work trip, and I had a plan. My exact itinerary was scheduled before I departed, and I wanted to speed it up and slow it down at the same time.

“The Word of the Lord came,” were the first words that hit my windshield, and I found myself thinking of Ananias. Simple thoughts — just recalling the story of how the Spirit of the Lord told Ananias to find a man named Saul.

In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”
“Yes, Lord,” he answered.
The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight (Acts 9).

The subsequent thought northbound on CA-85 was, “Go to the Catholic church in Mountainview. There is a woman praying there.” I have to admit that my hearts first inclination was not “Yes, Lord,” and I intentionally missed the Mountainview exit. I had an itinerary, and I wanted to beat the traffic to Half Moon Bay.

Yet, amidst my reluctance, humility was victorious. Who was I to deny the Creator of the universe? Should I want to know if that was actually Him, I had a clear path forward — a u-turn south.

I parked on the street and found a mission-style church with every door locked, but I saw an elevator and hit the button. It lit up, and the doors slid open twice — once on the street and once to an alcove before the sanctuary. I walked up the aisle of an empty, silent church and sat in a pew near the front left. I conceded that I must have just been having random thoughts — at least they were about Scripture in general. I paused to pray briefly and prepared to leave when I saw pink and two small feet.

The figure a woman, barely visible to me became apparent. A small, old lady with a bright pink jacket knelt in front of the tabernacle in the space between the altar.

A woman in the Mountainview was praying in the Catholic church.

She must have heard me rustling through my bags because she promptly got up, clearly taken off guard that another was in the church, and she shuffled away. All this for the lady to just get up and leave?

I have come to seek and save the Lost.

She will return. Wait. Tell her that I have come to seek and save the lost. Luke 19.

I sat, and I waited. She returned fifteen minutes later, and I approached her with a nervous, “Excuse me…”

She was not surprised at all that a random woman from the east coast would come to give her a message from the Lord, and she nodded, pondering, accepting as I spoke the Word of the Lord. We prayed together, and I left.

The Word of the Lord came, and I returned to my rental car parked near the orange trees in the rain.