Jesus: Baptism of the Spirit

Dream 02.2002:

With walking staff in hand, wearing a threadbare tunic, I am wandering in a reedy marsh, loosely following a rocky, shallow riverbed. Murky pools of stagnant water fan out all around me. After what feels like hours of wandering this way, my eyes fall on a sight that stops me in my tracks.

What I see at the far end of an especially large pool is a group of brilliant anthropomorphic figures. They are wise elders, they have been watching me, and it is clear they have been patiently awaiting my arrival also. There are five or six these beings of golden light, shimmering like mirages and yet not mirages at all. In fact, it seems as if my eyes cannot fully take in the light emanating from them, so they appear as vibratory frequencies rather than solid bodies.

Without saying a word, they gently draw me toward them, as if I am a fish hooked at the heart to an invisible cord which they are reeling in. I step into the water and trudge through the algae and scum until I am waist deep, the muck under my feet oozing up through my toes. I keep moving forward, almost somnambulantly, and the further I go, the more peaceful I feel. In a moment I find I am in too deep. Yet I don’t mind this because I am as weary as I am at peace within myself. I am so deeply at peace, in fact, that my peace of mind resonates like a radio frequency throughout the environment all around me. My peace deepens into bliss now, and I simply cannot move another step. Like pharaoh lying in his tomb, I fold my arms across my chest and gently, in a state of total surrender, collapse backwards into the water.

Floating on my back, arms folded across my chest, I deeply intone again and again, “Ommm … ommm … ommm.” I hear Om echoing back to me from every stone, from the river, from the reeds, and even the sky itself. Then, suddenly, someone’s hand thrusts me under the surface of the water, pushing down forcibly on my chest. Though I am startled, I don’t worry. I cannot worry. I have completely surrendered.

Underwater now, floating slowly down, down, down, the sound of Om becomes a new sound. Instead of Om I am now chanting Home. I ponder the meaning of this, but not for too long, because suddenly my lungs, at the point of exhaustion, gasp for a breath of air. I inhale a throatful of marsh water. The water I have swallowed is flooding into my lungs when I see the image of a young man refracted in the sunlight at the surface of the water. The young man reaches into the water, takes hold of my hand, and hoists me up onto my feet again. I spit up water and algae, gasping for air as I climb to the dry bank. The youth is someone I know. His name is John. He is in his twenties and in his hand he has a stopwatch. As I regain my bearings, John holds the stopwatch up to show me how long I stayed under. The watch reads 3:23. With a big, mischievous smile on his face, as if all along we had been playing a game together, John marvels, “I can’t believe you stayed down that long!” End of dream.

I have read the Bible for almost as long as I’ve been able to read. I do not know chapter and verse, however. Nonetheless, the dream was clearly a baptism of the spirit. I felt certain upon waking that the 3:23 on John’s stopwatch refered to the Gospel of John 3:23.

This verse in the Aramaic Peshitta, the Eastern Orthodox Bible, reads as follows:

22 After these things Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea, and he remained there with them and baptized. 23 John was also baptizing at the spring of Aenon near to Shalim, because there was much water there; and they came and were baptized. 24 For John was not yet cast into prison. John 3:23

‘Shalim,’ of course, means ‘peace,’ and this name is highly significant because what I wrote was: “I am so deeply at peace, in fact, that my peace of mind resonates like a radio frequency throughout the environment all around me.”


[Painting: John the Baptist. Andrea del Sarto, c. 1528]