A long flat-bed wagon rolls up on the road before us, stops, and we all climb aboard.

On the wagon are staff members of the mental health clinic. (in 'real' life, I have recently lost my job as a group counselor for standing up for what I think is right in support of one of the group members).  At first the staff aboard the wagon appreciate our vitality and joy, but they soon try to dampen our energy, pulling me aside requiring me to relate with my 'friends' as 'clients/patients,' as 'helping professionals' are hired to do. 

I become uptight and stilted, growing so tired that I  no longer can stand, and slump to the floor.

The road has become rough, and hitting a bump, I roll off the flat wagon (band wagon?) onto the road. I lie there awhile alone, exhausted and sad. Eventually I crawl to the edge of the road and pull myself up a grassy slope.

At the top of the hill, I sit under a tree, straining to pray and meditate.  I look for, and cry for, help from Jesus, begging him to  again appear to me as he had several years before at another crisis-time in my life. After many minutes with no result, I give up ... and open my eyes.

Before and below me is a full panoramic landscape. To my right is a modern city, with tall, grey skyscrapers and concrete, congested traffic, horns blaring, and smog. Men and women in business suits and the poorly clothed homeless walk and set and lay on the sidewalks.

The main street leads out of the city onto a bridge over a waterway upon which the road leads into a path through a verdant green forest and meadow, to my left.  The sun shines brightly, the air is clean and clear. Grass, wildflowers, blue skies and the many forms of wildlife contrast greatly with the unpleasant cityscape to the right.

A loud, deep, melodic voice thunders, rolling, reverberating,  permeating the entire scene, with one drawn out word ....... 

I awaken.

When I get stressed, all I need to do is open my eyes and see; this is the moment given for me, containing all I need no matter how it might appear, pleasant or unpleasant.  The answer to my quest to see "Christ" is to see and hear him in everything.  Christ literally becoming E v e r y t h i n g to me. I hesitate to use the word Christ, meaning to me reality, the truth beyond words. The Living One we ourselves are, awakened to it.

In a very realistic, down-to-earth way, I now can relax and be more tolerant, more acceptant of everything that happens to fall out around me, everything having it's opportunity, lesson and gift.

At the time I had this dream, over thirty-five years ago now, the dire events depicted in my Everything graphic were not occurring, at least to the extent and frequency they now are.  The same message, "Everything" continues to sound, regardless of what occurs, and will in the 'future'. Even the unimaginable, apparently tragic and painful events we increasingly hear and read about and unfolding in our own personal experience throughout the world. None of this is occurring by accident.  

Everything, even these apparent calamities, along with the fulfilling, growing, healing experiences serve to help us search and find what is 'beyond the door', what/who we really love; in reality, WHO we really are. 

All things and events, that appear before us and outside us, I am now coming to see, are at root, elements of our own dream making, much like these we create as we sleep: all elements, aspects and projections of ourselves. Learning to face deal with, and forgive all circumstances in that Spirit which we have found is what E V E R Y T H I N G is about.

... To awaken, with Awareness beyond even commonly shared waking consciousness, and to remain aware with spiritual vision, no matter where and when we find ourselves, is the key.  This is  important to the very survival of life on earth in the immediate days ahead. Someone has to remain awake and understand what is going on, cross the bridge and begin the New way of living on the earth.

As we come to forgive ourselves, others, and the entirety of the world experience, we develop vision and capabilities which makes everything look VERY different to us. We develop eyes and ears in the place of bodily eyes and ears. Not in place of, but what we see with bodily eyes and hear with our bodily ears, has very different meaning to us than what we saw and heard before, and what others around us may not yet see. 

As the Gospel of Thomas saying states, we even develop new hands and feet and are able to do what we could not before.  In this growth, we lose nothing of value whatsoever, regaining E V E R Y T H I N G, now seen in a new light. The rainbow appears between what we formally saw as 'bad' and 'good', the dark, and the light ... the bridge between the storm and the bright day. It is all "Him".

Everything is custom-tailored each instant, bringing us back to total awareness of being Home in the Living One, wherever and whenever we happen to be.  

This is increasingly how I see everything. 

                                            Jerry B (Gerald Brittell)