And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth,
th e top of it reaching to heaven;
and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
—Genesis 28.12
Was it a long, long ladder,
a skinny rickety thing
reaching up through clouds,
through the stratosphere, the mesosphere,
golly, all the way to the stars?
(Was there a little landing,
a resting spot on the moon?)
Or did it transcend space,
because it’s not about altitude,
but presence,
vanishing up into God?
Was the angelic traffic heavy,
was it like downtown or the airport,
everybody rushing to get somewhere?
Or was it more casual? Or maybe
more stately, like a church procession?
What if it was really just
a little wooden stepladder
and the angels of heaven
all went up and down on it at once
because heaven is the presence of God
and it’s right here,
and their going wasn’t so much travel
as a change of perspective?
What if your heart is the ladder,
and angels are on the move,
and a little bit of you goes all the way
to God and back,
even when you sleep through it?
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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