A barrage of "signs": The Mystery of the Rocking Pig...

 

I've often been accused by my friends of “reading too much into the tea leaves.” So be it. It is because I believe that God shows us signs constantly, if we are paying attention, and He might use an infinite number of things to guide us. If we care to be guided. According to the Bible, God started out man's second chance to exist with a sign, a rainbow... and a promise.

I have had the pleasure of recognizing many signs during my life. God has used road signs, folder spills and even racoons to send me thoughts and directions. I have made many “life decisions” after deep prayer and then opening up for God's direction. I have never seen a thing in the tea leaves, but then I hardly ever drink tea. God speaks to us in a particular language by manipulating things we are familiar with... in noteworthy juxtapositions that we can hardly ignore. I should write a book about it. But suffice to say that I do not believe in accidents or coincidences...

Usually, when somebody else tells me about a sign they have experienced, I feel like they are nuts. Everybody's connection and relationship with God is unique and different. I only know what has happened to me. Friends have told me of literal angels appearing, or visions of spirits or a “giant eye.” Mine are not like that. They are usually allegories drawn from nature. Or bizarre groupings or sudden appearances of symbolic features on the landscape, which if they are applied, are amazingly germane to some prayer concern of mine.

I have probably misread some, or seen significance in some random things that were not God-sent, for sure. But several times during our marriage, God has shown my wife and I a path through some difficulty after we prayed together about it. I'm talking important things, like jobs and homes and relocating across the state. And he has often used actual “signs.”

So last August when I looked up into the night sky as I often do... I've had some great talks with God while doing so... I saw an amazing configuration. I had to go look it up on the Internet. Jupiter and Saturn were very close to the Moon. It turned out that this year has been a special year, featuring a rare and unusual dance between Jupiter and Saturn, closer to one another this year than they have been in 400 years. And as they “danced” by the Moon for a few days, it was stunning.

There are astrological interpretations of the significance of these celestial rendezvous, the Moon being the mother, Jupiter the father and ruler, and Saturn the planetary representative for duty and justice and wisdom. Who knows... lots of possibilities could be extrapolated from that. But as soon as I saw these three together, I thought about the “Wise Men,” who came from the far east to find and pay tribute to the Christ Child. Again, God speaks to us in terms we are familiar with. He told the Persian astrologers that a king was coming in Judea... a possible savior of the world, as Jupiter (royalty) was passing through Leo (Lion of Judah)... Somehow a virgin was involved, because Jupiter then was associated with Virgo. It was a huge, nightly billboard pointing to a messiah in or near Jerusalem. Familiar with ancient Jewish traditions and texts they knew, the “wise men” knew that if HE was really coming, he would be born in Bethlehem.

Ironically, perhaps by design, the Jews were forbidden to study astrology, and did not get the memo. But Gentiles were obsessed with the stars, and God knew it, and He spoke to them in symbols they understood. And they came from thousands of miles away to see the Messiah. These constellations were such topics of controversy, the Parthian Kings, some with Jewish ancestry, had been overthrowing one another, claiming the signs were validating them. But today we do not even know their names. Legends still persist to this day in Iran about John the Baptist and his cousin, Jeshua, and the impact they had on Persian Magi who came back with amazing stories. It all started with well-placed, fairly easily interpreted signs.

Anyway, I ignored the Moon/Jupiter/Saturn gathering, not knowing what to make of it. But Americans might read the astronomical events as affirmation of a world leader and his bride, persons who possess wisdom and discipline and who will achieve justice and prosperity... not a bad caption for the Trumps.

But strictly hokus pokus...

BUT THEN... In mid-September... just a couple of weeks later, this incredible, giant boletus mushroom- the biggest one I have ever seen, popped up in our front yard... and not just anywhere, right outside my office window. This thing was seven inches in diameter! Mushrooms have always been messengers of coming prosperity... if you are a witch and believe such things. There were smaller mushrooms all over the yard. Then an even bigger one popped up a few yards from the first one, right in our lantana bed. I took a walk around the mesa, to see if there was some kind of mushroom Burning Man thing going on... but ours were the thickest and the biggest. But Hey, we are talking fungus here. So what, if they say this kind of mushroom gathering only happens every five or six years...

AND THEN, the weirdest thing of all. I'm sitting in my armchair at the end of the day. My brain is dead, and I am just waiting to nod off or eat supper. Then I notice... a strange light undulating on my wooden rocking pig which decorates our fireplace hearth. There is no light on in the room. So I look back, across the house to see if there is some kind of bizarre reflection which could be shooting light across the living room on to the pig. The SUN, about to go down, was shooting through a bunch of trees, over the mushrooms, through the office window, through the office, the office door, across the living room, over the top of the couch, and hitting the pig with a perfect perpendicular ray, filtered by the windblown trees outside. The next day was a repeat, but not quite as accurate, so Sept 27 was officially named Solar Pigstace Day.

But I have no idea what that means.

Alignments. Stars. I have no idea... The next day we saw a number of Indian Paintbrushes, normally a profuse spring flower, popping up along the roadside... and on our property. In September. OK, so the rains confused them. The cool weather, the four or five inches of rain... but what got my attention was the places they sprouted... often right out of a thick layer of limestone gravel. Beauty and germination in the bleakest of places. Everything seemed to pointing to the pin-point precision, the perfection and sufficiency of God's Creation. Giant fungi just a few feet from my desk... A random sun-ray threading through my house, to envelop a beloved carving at my feet. It seemed nature was doing everything it could to say, “It's OK, everything is lined up, everything is working just as it should.”

We love the deer in our neighborhood. They have forty or fifty acres to romp in on the adjoining property. One morning we saw two deer during our two-mile walk. We had walked right past them, but did not see them, and they did not run away. When we got to the farthest point of our walk, and turned around... and there they were. They were like a painting, one with the strong light illuminating her like a light bulb. I wondered how many wonderful things we walk past and never see. How many things in Nature see us, but we never see them. Whenever the deer come through the yard, we always go watch them, as if it was the first time.

When the news broke about the President and his wife having the Covid virus, I said a special prayer at breakfast. We just trusted the Trumps, and our whole country in fact, into God's hands. The God who made this wonderful, beautiful world knows all about it. His Grace is sufficient.

Just a few minutes after breakfast, I was looking out one of the east windows, and about to remark that the deer would be changing their feeding habits, with the increase of predation in the fall. About that time a six-point buck climbed up the mesa into our back yard. He stayed and grazed a long time. To me, it was God saying. “Yes, everything is under control. Enjoy this young buck, without blemish, my perfect messenger.”

Just a few days later, I noticed the semi-annual alignment of the rising sun with the skyline of Temple, Texas. Solar Pigstace was just the precursor for this beautiful sight, often obscured in the autumn by fog or clouds. But not this year... a year of signs.

I have no conclusions about these signs. They are comforting, yet quickening in a way- they say to me “pay attention!”. When God found us this place on the mesa, high above the world, it immediately felt as if we were looking across mankind, the busy world “out there,” and I felt a kind of... removal from it all. I often say that God “plucked us out” of our old situation. Linda agrees. My heart needed a rest... literally and figuratively. Now I have woods to stroll in, a favorite boulder to meditate and pray on... many animals to watch and learn from. And wild, inspiring sunsets and sunrises. So I may just be seeing more “signs” because I am constantly opening myself to them... in a place where Nature can speak quite eloquently. But then... that rocking pig... caught perfectly in a celestial alignment... as if the Knights Templar had built our house! I'm telling you, seeing that was as exciting as the mysterious alignment in the famous ancient stone tower in Rhode Island.

This world... and the Universe, are like a humongous clock, built to perfection, and even the doings of man fit into it in a marvelous way... or at least sometimes they can... perhaps when built according to God's Will. And I have to believe, that God would not send so much assurance, so much comfort to my conscious mind, if it was some kind of empty promise. The signs have been positive and encouraging. The opposite of the lies and hysteria on Network Television. Perhaps the same kinds of signs that lured the Wise men to Judea are still being broadcast today. When spring flowers burst from the rocks in September, when all of Nature testifies of God's perfect plan, and even silly wive's tales verify hope in the future, why not just go with it?

When God allowed “Cyrus the Great” to take control of Persia, it was an essential part of His plan to restore the Jews to Israel. Cyrus should be pronounced with a hard K, so the great Persian ruler was actually Kurush. Cyrus supposedly meant “sun.” So the Persian ruler was associated with the center and power and light of the Universe. And in fact for a time he served that very purpose. He was not a Jew, not a leader of the Hebrews... yet he has been remembered for millennia by them as one anointed, a liberator, a re-builder of their worship and way of life. It was during his third year in power that God gave amazing visions to Daniel, who must have somehow let him know of their content. He ultimately set the Jews free to return to Jerusalem and financed their revival. He reversed a great injustice, and prepared Israel for the return of its Messiah.

This counter-intuitive method is an established trend in God's political strategy, to often use a great leader, even a pagan one to be his agent. This was much the case in the great achievements of Constantine. Signs played a large role in these men's thoughts and deeds. They were powerful, unstoppable, disrupters of the status quo. Constantine saw a giant cross in the sky, and read “In this sign conquer.” And he did, maybe more obediently than a life-long disciple of Christ. Certainly more ruthlessly. But he changed the course of history.

From Moses till today, God has chosen to use unlikely, uninitiated messengers. His anointed leaders are rarely from the establishment, but are more often from obscure or unglamorous origins. He would pick a Peter over a Paul any day... and if he picks a Paul, he will be a broken, repentant one. And when he picks his man, no man, no woman can stand against him. When God has some big thing in mind... like setting the captives free, or salvation of mankind... or Christianizing all of Europe... he picks a strong, almost inhumanly resolute person... someone who will follow through, and not run from trouble like Noah or David.

Moses had a burning bush, and water out of a ROCK, and a staff that turned into a snake... he enjoyed lots of amazing and bizarre signs. It is doubtful that he would ever have risen to power without God's help and insistence, guided by signs. Peter, an impetuous fisherman, was the “rock” upon whom Jesus said he would build his church. Boorish and unschooled, he is still considered by many Christians to be the founding Apostle of the Faith. He was also shown amazing signs... walking on water was only one. Jesus gathered a whole gang of these kinds of men... working men, only a few of his disciples were men of letters. Action was paramount, the parables and miraculous accounts could be written down later. Talk is cheap. God loves an action man. His chosen leaders are often not men of words or gifted in speech. But they go. They do. And they usually offend everybody when they do.

Moses died without many friends. Most of the Prophets did. Doing God's bidding is basically the “foolish” confounding the “wise,” and can be very unpopular at the time; Justice to be imposed on a dark, corrupt world. Power and authority stood on its head. It's not a job for a sissy. Not a task for the insecure.

So what if Donald Trump is this kind of leader? He certainly fits the mold. If so, he will be re-elected and totally exasperate his enemies. He still has work to do. He may have no idea that his success is not him, but a greater power... who is, well, using him. No doubt God has recruited him in this quest with signs he could read- as clearly as those which prompted great iconoclasts of the past. Maybe someday he will share those signs, which put a profane, ungodly hedonist, oafish and course in speech, in a great struggle, perhaps the greatest battle to restore America's moral compass.

P.S.: Days past as I pondered whether or not to post this blog. Signs for me may have been meant for no one else. Perhaps it was all too personal, and worse, subjective. Then election day finally came. The sun came up, glorious as if for the first time. 

The eastern star... the Star of Hope- glistened above as the sun highlighted a humble Hill Country shrub, laden with winged seeds ready to fly with the wind into infinity.

AND!... And... and angels had left their doodles in the western sky... which could not help but signify (to me) the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus, hanging on the cross... among thieves. He came for all of us. No matter how flawed or sinful. In seconds I was witnessing an epic light show, a heavenly illustration of the Alpha and the Omega. The great eternal truths of our universe... signs that God is near... in control, and there are no surprises in this world... for our Creator.

It easy to take heart, when you believe. It is easy then to dismiss most coincidences, and see meaning in so many otherwise mundane things. It easy to imagine that the God of this universe is speaking... through all of them- if we choose to listen... to read and receive these wonderful signs. AND HERE'S THE BEAUTIFUL PART... MANY OF THEM ARE OUT THERE EVERY DAY!