[Extra]Ordinary Stairs

I have a great deal to report, especially after a weekend of 24-7 prayer with the teens/pre-teens at my church. Tomorrow I will try to post some pictures from our wild little adolescent prayer room. But for now I'd like to turn to Zechariah, and to a vivid dream I had yesterday about stairs, worship, and community.

I've been itching to study the minor prophets for the last few years. They seem so underrated and mysterious and glossed over. (Those are my favorite kinds of anything, incidentally.) Well, I'm finally at a season in my life where I can sit down with a few commentaries and really study these minor keys. I'm starting with Zech.

Zechariah had 8 profound visions in one night. Taken as one, they all concerned the role of Jerusalem before the Messiah would reign forever and make all things new. The prophetic words greatly encouraged Israel at the time, because they'd recently returned from captivity, and were desperate for God's blessing once again. But Zechariah's words weren't fulfilled in his time. They spoke of a time to come.

All of this study about visions and dreams has me thinking about loads of things. But today, for one, I can't get out of my mind a dream I had yesterday. I was resting in the afternoon, after a nice drive back from Baltimore and lunching with Wanda and Renee. I fell into quite a deep sleep for just taking a nap, and I dreamt of stairs.

I was with two younger women, climbing ordinary-looking, unfinished wooden stairs that seemed to go miles high. As we started walking together up the stairs, I said, "These stairs will take us deeper into God's presence. I won't let you fall behind me." The young women nodded, and we climbed.

As we neared the top, the two panicked. They remembered another young woman was far below, still on the ground. She'd never started climbing. They looked at each other, and then at me, and shouted frantically:

"Vicky! We have to go back down to get Vicky. She needs us to help her up these stairs."

And so they made the long journey down, and helped Vicky begin making the climb up the wooden stairs. She was visibly reluctant, at first. But they managed the way upwards through their persistence as they walked alongside of her.

Now, I'm no Zech, and no, I haven't been listening to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." But I do think there is loads in that dream that speaks of our profound need for each other, and of our deepest need to "come up higher" into God's presence.
There is much to be said about worship in the dream.
The stairs were so ordinary! They were unfinished and rough, but sturdy. There were no hand-rails! How risky the way up really was. I only knew that I was safe climbing upward with a few others beside me.