One morning in early November, I woke with an image, unexpected, like my whispers, but visual – not my gift.
The animated image began with a little pink package that slowly zoomed in toward me to reveal itself as artificial sweetener. The scene zoomed back out and I watched the pink package rise up toward the sky. It then multiplied into a fan of packages, which then opened themselves up, then turned themselves upside down, and then package by package, like a wave in the stands of a football game, starting with the left-most package and ending with the right-most, they each sprinkled down their sweetener.
Next I was shown what stood below the sweeteners: a church. I saw the artificial sweetener sprinkle down like gentle snow upon the church. This image appeared like a nostalgic Norman Rockwell scene.
Then the scene zoomed out to show both the church and a second fan of packages in the sky. Additional fans of packages began to emerge like ripples, with each fan positioning itself behind the one before. Row by row, starting with the front row, the packages opened themselves, turned themselves upside down, and then sent down their sweetener, this time not package by package, but fan by fan. As full fans of artificial sweetener rained down, this scene was more dramatic, like thick snow raining heavily upon the church. Norman Rockwell would not have drawn this scene.
Then a whisper arrived:
The church is getting baptized
with artificial sweetener.
I laid in bed pondering the vision, first that I had had one at all. For nineteen years, I have received auditory messages from a world beyond ours, usually by surprise, off my radar, and so much more profound than any of my own petty thoughts. But, other than a few during my “summer in the twilight zone” in 2005, visual messages I have not seen, nor, for that matter, asked for. This one was the second over the course of about five weeks of visions I’m calling Metaphors of Life.
Like my whispers, this one also arrived by surprise and quite distinct from the chattering in my head of the things I needed to do that day. A few days later, I shared it with my dietician friend, the same one who shared the story that began my Traps of Life post about the client to whom she suggested switching from Coke to Diet Coke and his resistance at a change so mild. I asked her what she thought of the vision and any meaning she, as a dietician, might attribute to artificial sweetener. She said what came to her was “empty calories,” the dietician way of saying “no nutritional benefit.”
Together we lamented the sadness of this message. In various ways, both of us have seen it play out in the church, which I no longer attend. I tried for quite some time to be the Evangelical and the Mystic, but I can no longer straddle those identities. Tragically, mystics don’t fit into today’s churches. Is it because they are getting baptized with artificial sweetener?
As I reflected on the meaning, I considered the nature of artificial sweetener: too sweet, not natural, man-made, temporary, and addicting.
I then pondered what the church is called to be: salt. The distinction is striking. They might look alike, but one is sweet and the other is bitter, one gives nutrition and the other takes it away, one is temporary and the other is a preservative. Artificial sweetener delights us for the moment, but salt preserves us for the long term.
Finally, I connected this vision to the previous one, already posted, The Smorgasbord, and I saw the artificial sweetener as one of the “delights” of the smorgasbord. The salt we are called upon to be could be like one of those spaces between the delights. These are those little seen open spaces between the many delights toward which we draw ourselves.
Ah, those spaces! At first, they seem bitter, like salt, but
then we discover how they preserve us, and then they become sweet, like natural
sugar. I find myself encouraged to take
the time to draw from those spaces between the smorgasbord delights and choose
what has long-lasting nutritional benefit. To do so is not easy: the delights and the
artificial sweetener are so tempting, so pleasing. May I have the strength and the patience to
wait for what is better.
© 2025
by karina. All rights reserved. Please use with permission and/or a link to
this blog post.
Previous
posts noted in this one
