Steps and Ladders

I enjoy browsing estate and garage sales. What do I look for? Yup, “things” for the garden or quilting.

I hit the jackpot when one of the estate sale homes had a designated sewing room filled with my kind of goodies: an armoir stacked to the max with neatly organized by color 1 to 2 yard fabric pieces, a hanging spool holder, bins of assorted notions, and a padded sewing chair with built in storage! While exiting the home with my haul, out of the corner of my eye, I spied a rickety wooden ladder leaning catty-wompous-like against the side of the house’s brick wall. I loaded up my car and promptly returned to check it out. Huh, no price tag was stuck anywhere. I asked at the desk and the chashier said, “Oh, that crooked old thing? You can have it for a dollar.” I could hardly shut my hatch back SUV it was so full, but off I went with an exuberant smile looking forward to giving my purchases a place of honor in their new home! What a great day! BTW, I haven’t bought any fabric for over a year now and my ladder, crooked as it is, is now a trellis for a passion fruit vine in my backyard! Score!

My heart continues to smile everytime I see its crooked self supporting my crazily growing vine, a prize ettible for swallow tail butterfly caterpillars.

What’s the continued ladder story?

If you grew up in church, what children’s chorus pops into your head about a ladder? You got it. . . . “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.”

As someone who has vivid dreams and often talks in her sleep, I also remember my dreams in detail and I wonder what I was thinking, or what they mean. Yet, I’ve never related to Jacob’s dream/vision nor understood it as written in Genesis 8: 10-19.

Maybe it means that God should no longer feel far off, but near.

Maybe it means I’m not alone on an untried journey with an uncertain fate.

Maybe it means that I can experience a continual ascension in my heart.

Maybe it means that God can be especially present for me where I least think of meeting him.

Maybe it means that the commonest things of life become sacred if I only recognize their depth.

Maybe it means that in whatever place my soul feels the presence of the divine, there is my sanctuary.

Finally, maybe it means that every fresh revelation of God obliges me to confess my ignorance and inattention.

In verse 21 of Genesis 28, Jacob asks, “Will you indeed be with me?”

I look forward with anticipation watching the rungs of my estate sale ladder perched in my garden sanctuary will be ascended and descended repeatedly with new revelations each season. One thing for sure, my rickety ladder reminds me to not limit the dreams for my life nor forget to celebrate each rung of connection to my Lord.

Where and how do you connect with the divine?