DAWNING

IT IS FINISHED. I carefully wrap it up. Soon I am driving into town to post it off to the other side of the world to America; never dreaming that what was in it was anything which could interest or delight heaven; although, that must have been what it did and I can’t understand it. Yet, since the record of the proof of that inexplicable fact is relevant to the existence of this book my account of it has been set here at the beginning of it. 

   I had always written long letters about my adventures but I had never yet written a chronological account of my life’s experiences. But one day I found myself sitting down to write and something much longer than a letter.  I wrote it all in handwriting on a lot of paper. It eventually turned into the first sixty typed pages of this book, as it now is; but back then in 2004 it was in its first raw state, its first rough draft; which was lost, or destroyed.

   I handwrote what was to become Part One of it as though I was actually in it; as indeed I was, living it all again in a welling-up and flowing–over of joy. When it was finished I bundled up my pile of scribbled pages and put them, wrapped, into a folder and in a large envelope addressed to my friends in the United States: the first dear people that I had met at Orama, Gt. Barrier Island, who had spoken to me of God, and whom I thought would love to read the account of what had happened and how I was led there that most wonderful day. I put the bulging envelope on the front passenger seat and drove to Kerikeri in our old red van to post it.

   On the way, as I approached the southern outskirts of the small town of Kaeo I saw a man step into this world. For a second, I saw only half of him, his right arm and left leg in a full swinging walk as he passed through some kind of invisible ‘curtain,’ or ‘wall,’ and then all of him appeared casually entering the world and walking across the grass toward the edge of the road a little distance in front of me; for me to stop and give him a lift, or so it seemed to me.

   I never pick up hitchhikers if I am the only adult in the car; but automatically slowing down to stop and pick him up was the most natural thing I could do; and I did it. I knew this was right and what I was to do. There was such peace, even a sense of ordinariness as though it was perfectly fine and normal to see a man step into this world; but it seemed there was no difference of affinity between us in being, somewhere same. I don’t understand it. It is just how it was.

   He opened the front passenger door with a smile and looked with joy at the empty seat before him with my large envelope on it. I had put a sheepskin over the envelope, so it could not be seen, but he was seeing right through to my bundle of writing. Then he gave me to understand that he needed to go to Kerikeri and to a certain place. As I lifted the sheepskin with my packet of writing to the back seat, to make room for him to sit down in the front beside me, he followed my action with truly loving, smiling eyes.

   He looked to be about in his middle forties; he had a slightly receding forehead and receding hairline and short dark hair; he was of medium height and slightly stocky. He wore a dark leather jacket and old looking denim jeans. He did not speak in words. Neither did my little two year old grandson utter a sound who, was in his car-seat in the back. I turned to see if Zion was alright, and he looked quite dazed, his eyes not focused. He seemed to be wrapped in some kind of inner listening silence; but I knew he was fine and so I didn’t say anything, either.

   As we drove on – Kerikeri was another twenty minutes away – I continued to be silent and so did the man. Once, briefly, as I turned my head to look at him tears of joy were streaming down his shining face. I knew he was ‘reading’ me: seeing me on the inside the whole time; and what he found there seemed to delight him and heaven, too: we were ‘on the same page;’ although, I didn’t understand it.

   When we reached the intersection in Waipapa where I could go in either one of two different directions, I spoke, and asked him which way he wanted to go? Again, he didn’t reply by any spoken language but lifted up his whole arms and hands in a beautiful gesture of surrender and praise and worship to God and thanksgiving.

   So I just drove straight on.

   We soon got to the place it seemed he wanted to go to. I slowed down and stopped on the opposite side of the road, and he simply opened the door and got out. As I slowly drove off, I saw him in the rear view mirror walking behind the van about to cross the road, and then he vanished.

   A few weeks later, I received a reply from the friends that I had posted my ‘book’ to. Their response to it was a total shock to me. It appeared that they did not understand my testimony; they were offended by it; to them it seemed only shameful, they wrote. I was devastated. I thought they would rejoice with me and be glad. I had written nothing but the truth, baring my whole heart and soul and spirit.

   Suddenly, I felt that I should not have written it down. I must have got something wrong, somewhere, somehow: for they were very upset by my writing. I felt dreadfully embarrassed that I should ever be offensive to anyone, let alone to such beloved precious friends; and now I had lost them.

   So, I decided that I was wrong, and that I was not meant to record my life and write it down. I made a conscious decision that I would not write the things that happened in my life, the truth that I saw and heard in me, ever again, or at least, never give my writings to anyone to read.

   But one day, a long time later – four years later – all that changed. I remembered the visit. I saw again a second time the angel’s tears and his loving joyous delight as he ‘read’ me and ‘my book.’ I finally understood his message. All at once, I felt released: my confidence restored. I knew why he had come why God had sent him — this book would not exist if he hadn’t — it would never have been written.