"You will see angels descending and ascending"

I dreamed that a journal writer, oh so beautiful, visited my wife Cindy's garden in the night. I was in the garden too, bent over on hands and knees, gazing at a place on the tilled soil where, oddly it seems to me now, although it did not strike me as odd then, a few orange cut and peeled carrots, the mass produced kind, were resting fresh and luminous in the soil, as if recently dropped there. And as I gazed at the carrots, I sensed the presence of someone and looked up. The journal writer seated before me wore a dark robe, her hair was shiny black like wet ink, and her exposed forearms and lower legs was flawlessly paper white. What made her so beautiful was the long slender quality of her bone structure, the solemn, mournful dignity conveyed in her posture, and her intense focus on writing. I could not see her face, but I could see a page in her journal. She was writing on the left hand side, apparently unaware of me, as I strained to see, and the right hand page said, in typed script, centered like this text here, but alone on the page:

Journey of Angels
(forthcoming)
by Henri Nouwen

I was puzzled. Was she writing the words that would appear in a forthcoming book authored by Henri Nouwen? I had seen Nouwen, and she did not look like Nouwen. I think of her now as my image of Nouwen's inner beauty or an aspect of Nouwen's angel.

I was marvelously confused, when something happened that really fits the the notion of a "journey of angles," the descending and ascending kind of journey. First came the descent. A voice from the sky spoke and with each word seemed to come closer to earth. It was a resonate voice and it made me want to know and welcome the speaker. I looked to see who it was, and above the orange red ribbon of sunlight on the horizon, all I saw was dark night sky. The voice began in a tone of disorientation, slowly asking,

"Why am I in this place a this time?"

Then the tone shifted to hopeful discovery, declaring,

Unless...

There was a pause that seemed literally to make my heart muscle gulp and stand still. And then came the self-relinquishing announcement:

I'm one of them.

With the word "them" my mind did an instantaneous scan of possible meanings. Was the voice saying, I'm one of them: the angels on a journey? Or saying, I'm one of them: the orange carrots fallen to the ground? Or was the voice speaking of my kind of creature -- I'm one of them: the mortals? The words touched my whole body. In a flash, saw myself from above down there in the garden on my knees looking up, my frame pale, and skinny and, except for my usual bed clothes, a pair of white cotton briefs, I was naked. Back in my body, I was being tossed head over heals by an invisible force, a power. And as I was about to land on my back, suddenly I awoke, breathless.

The dream was over. The thought that flashed in my mind was, "I'm cursed." A horrible new interpretation of what it means to be "one of them." I never felt so abandoned, so vulnerable to my mortal condition, so aware of the inevitability of death. A moment earlier, I had felt blessed to identify with the heavenly voice, but upon awakening I felt the complete opposite. I rebelled against the feeling, and told myself that it was only an emotional remnant of a dream. I tried to take a deep breath to restore my sense of normalcy. But I was unable to breathe. I was wide awake mentally, fully aware that I was lying flat on my back in bed with my wife, but my body remained in the paralysis of dream sleep, and so, my body was completely unresponsive to my wishes.

When I was at my lowest point, then came the upward journey....