Visions and the Monkey Mind

So I'm reading Merton and he's talking about how in meditative prayer he is frustrated by the irrelevant images that play through his mind and act as a distraction. I could not identify with this since, I guess, I was still surrounded by Holy flame (so to speak... it sounds dramatic but it's real). It seemed like my focus has been drawn forcefully and fiercely (one could say obsessively) to the Light for months. I just couldn't identify with distraction.

Now I understand distraction because it's started happening to me Thursday. In prayer, or what I call prayerful thought, my mind has lately been bouncing around like a ball between totally irrelevant and random images. It's absolutely bizarre. I just can't focus on any relevant thought for very long. I need to find a way to focus but I also am curious. It's true some of the images I'm seeing might have meaning and so I've decided to go with it and see where it takes me. I've been reading a book about modern day prophecy and, while I'm taking this book's ideas cautiously, I do believe in spiritual insight. I'm thinking about writing down images and words that come into my mind.

The name Steve randomly popped into my head quite clearly Friday morning...no clue who Steve was. Then I remembered a friend, Steve, in LA who has Lou Gerig's disease who probably needs prayer and contact...haven't e-mailed him for awhile. Not sure if there's a connection but God works in mysterious ways.

I also had a very weird waking vision last week that I'll write down because it was intense and kind of strange from a theological perspective. I saw Jesus on the cross and one of my friends was also on the cross hanging directly in front of Jesus. Behind the cross it looked like there was a large, ancient doorway and intense light was streaming out and around the cross. The cross seemed to block the doorway. Suddenly the light got so bright I couldn't look into it and I think it turned into flames. It was like Jesus and the cross were holding back some intense force that was wanting to get through the doorway. I suddenly realized my friend was getting burnt by the flames so I took my friend off the cross. Holding my friend, who was scorched but still alive, I hoped I'd done the right thing. Then I realized that Christ is the only one who can take our sins and the sins of the world on himself. If we try to join Christ on the cross we will be burnt by whatever the flames represented. Christ endured (perhaps still endures) the flames for our sake. Out of love for us he did the work of purifying us, saving us, and he protects us so we can do His work in the world which is to share his message of Love and salvation with others. The strange theological part was a question that occurred to me about Christ still being on the cross in some sense...and also free of the cross. Kind of the same idea that he is everything everywhere in every time because he lives outside temporal "reality". That's all I could make of of that vision.