Alice In Valhalla-land

   There is mild, and then there is mild! We all know soft spoken souls, those good-hearts whom we describe with; "She wouldn't hurt a fly", and when we say this, we mean it as a high compliment indeed! An older lady I know, who recently passed away; would be my favorite nominee for the "mild medallion" (that imaginary award which I just now invented). I wonder if she wants it?
   Alice was (and is?) a mild soul, at alarming levels. If (perhaps) a bumblebee landed upon Alice's demure nose, she might have (maybe) brushed it off, but my guess is that she would have been "concerned" about whether she had been rude to the bug! I mean, what if giving "Mr. bug-ster" the brush-off, hurt his little insect sized feelings? The meek inherit, whereas; (think we) the bold, the fierce conquer! This type of distinction, which we love to make about people, bends us toward favoring the bold, and discounting the gentle. But that's just because we are blockheads.
   We will (generally speaking) be "nice" to gentle souls, but we reserve "respect" for the fierce! Further, we have been collectively brainwashed upon the topic, in my humbly-ferocious opinion. There is; you must admit, an uncanny streak, an unexplainable aspect to gentleness. People like Alice are wildly, extravagantly, and "dangerously" self composed and sweet! We keep on pretending as if the two ends of the spectrum were disentangled, such that meek is meek, and fierce is fierce, and n'er the twain shall meet. It's just bunk, and not even a little bit convincing. The motor, the very engine of reality is all about connecting these types of "opposites". Meanwhile we (stupidly) insist upon seperating the twins, upon the shabby grounds that: "The kids don't look alike (to me)"! Fire and water "can't be" related, for the excellent reason (think we) that they have no family resemblance(!)...or so we say. This; in part, is what prayer is all about.
   Recall with me that our friend Alice died not too long ago. She is a "newcomer" to that high clean land. The mountain of the LORD is one almighty fresh, gladsome, bright and green place indeed! There (I assure you), one finds the desire of the heart, in fact; one finds the desire of the ages Himself! Nothing is "illegal" in that fine mountain air, no "disappointments" break hearts in that brilliant land. Ah...it is so very good! So anyhow, Alice made that leap; and dwells in a kind of Valhalla, a kind of "hall of the slain" for the mild! In that vast hall, at a grand wooden table, sits Alice! With a great big wooden drinking cup (mysteriously, always filled!), full of hearty mead, we find her. Seated with her friends, the Viking lords, she (naturally) not wishing to offend, is dressed like them, in a priceless polar bear robe. Wearing only the finest Viking hat, (of course) equipped with whopper-doodle horns, she produces her one foot long, fierce looking dagger, she slamming the butt of the handle on the table, roars "All Hail the King"! As she bellows, and the warrior champions of that mighty congregation of the glad; roar in unison with her, we wonder if this is the same Alice! Are you tracking with me here?
   Recall then the words of our plea..."kingdom (Thine) come, will (Thine) be done, here as there!". We are in prayer; connecting the opposites. Heaven up-high is the genuine article, and  Earth down-low, the copy. Make our world more like Yours (Sir)! The slender bridge betwixt the realms is one person wide. Across that bridge, the fiercely loyal, the fiery and implacable One has come down, to invade the low realm (this is where you come in), so to "convert", to rebuild, reboot and start life all over again. He is beginning from the inside out. Our plea then, for Him to unite the realm (His realm), is to unify all rule under the True King. For us to sponsor (in our bodies) and participate in, that shocking transformation, (that "will being done" jazz); this is seen in the uniting of Alice, with Eric the Red as team mates! Those friends of The High King who have made the leap (let me tell ya), they are stoked to the gills, all doubts "behind them"; they are fired-up, bright-eyed, and ready for action! The "will-jazz" then, is that; in us being rebooted from the ground up, in a life unbreakable, a vigor unshakable, we just walk away from fears, doubts and the failure which "is (was actually) us". Our friend, Alice in Valhalla land, is today a volcano of zeal, a regular torrent of stoked to the gills, "ain't backing down-ness"! The mild and the fierce have become one.
   So in prayer; we approach the new reality. Not only do we discuss a "potential" but the actual, the King has come! Therefore that golden age which we await, is also begun! King Jesus says; "Take my yoke upon you, for my burden is light". We kinda got some issues here Sir... Remember that big ox that Paul Bunyan used to run around with? Was it named "Ox-zilla"? No, we believe it was "Babe". In any case, Lord Christ is the whopper "Ox", to end all oxen. He pulls so hard, so as to move worlds? So, as He says that we are to join him in yoke, we see then an animal nine feet high at the shoulder, six and a half feet wide. The original powerhouse in Person! Paired with Him, we see... Bambi? How weird is that? The fierce, the strong the bold Captain "joined" to... Thumper? And do you know how He fixes the problem with the yoking? He shrinks! Highest of high, the Guy whom Angelic generals salute, He becomes so "low" that even Bambi looks pretty stout beside Him? This is the part where you come in!...
   Have I lost you already? What happened at Eden was that our necks got stiff, and we could no longer look upward. Everything (including heaven and her King) was "below" us, "beneath" our vision (which is but another way of saying that we are standing upon our noggins), in this; Adam's innovation. God bless the King! He was willing to go so low that even we could see Him! He appeared (for a time) weaker than Thumper, so as to let Thumper (you, we mean here) see Him, for the miscreant could only view things downward! "Looking down" on others is normally an insult to them, so it's a good thing that He refused to "take it Personally"!
   In the coming age, in that golden realm (and Alice testifies too!), our energies and His are united. We are "in yoke"; pulling on the same side, and (for once) in the same direction. To enter this friendship we trust Him. He has sworn himself to the task of building a new thing, a new kind of creature. Something called "the many-man", a sort of "compound individual", if you will. And this new "man" ("wild throng" really!) is being called right back out of death. "He", in Person stood up again, this time clothed in immortality, gladness, power and unkillable joy, so too the "many-man" shall be. It is already begun, and no authority CAN halt it! It is life to death, and back again to life. It is the engine of sanctity. He himself our hope, He Himself our light. All is, as it ought be!
   We hear from others more than enough about prayer, worship, and the call upon us. The talk and words aspect of life in Him are everywhere! Enough with the words already. Moreover we observe that the actions aspect, the  "going with" the words part, must be a kind of participation, a "partnership" of sorts. Alice knows. So then, the "missing element" here is the Sabbath "rest".
   The remarkable thing about swiss cheese is that it is mainly "not there". I sold you a piece of cheese, and the stuff is largely "holes"? Death, that ultimate passivity, the veriest quietude, we gladly roar into! We "die actively", we perish aggressively, and victoriously. He is the One joining these, our "opposites", and is Himself calling us into this very thing!
   As Babe the blue Ox shrunk to be a "match" for much smaller, frightened creatures, He makes them thus to grow, to "fill out", until they themselves become scary indeed! Viking lords with skulls hanging from their belts, singing praise to the precious Lamb of God! Just ask Alice, she'll tell ya true.