The Knight and the Horse

     How do I explain the inexplicable power that has forced me to turn away from my church?   It's happened to me before.  Years ago, I felt something like a palpable weight, almost as heavy as the atmosphere before a thunderstorm, when I walked around the church I was then attending.  There was no inner voice, no vision, just a power that succeeded in pushing me out of that church's doors. 
      And when I got pushed out of that place I became a true seeker.  I studied with a Hindu monk and learned about Native American medicine.  The Hindu tradition fit me as well as a sari I once tried to dress in  -- too tight and hobbling!  The Native American medicine is one I still practice, but it has never totally satisfied me, either. 
      So, back to church once more, with the realization that gnosis wasn't to be found within the confines of a church, but at least I was part of my own tradition again. Then, the deeper break this past year, something on a profounder level than the first time, and it was announced by a dream:
      I was in the back of a church, which was shaped like a square.  It had no windows, the walls were made of panels of wood, and all the pews were arranged in long rows with no middle aisle.  An altar stood on a short platform in the front.  There were people in the pews in front of me.
    A knight in armor that was brilliant silver rode slowly up the left aisle on a magnificent white horse.  I could see the beautifully braided, tight curls of the horse's mane.  The mounted figure rode to the front of the altar, saluted it with its bright sword, and then turned the horse around to face the congregation.  It  slowly made a sign of the cross over the people, then slowly rode down the right aisle and left.  The congregation was agitated and said, "It's Claire!  It's Claire!"  "No," I thought.  "It's Joan of Arc."
     Later that same day came the first volley of that inexplicable power, when I witnessed something bad happen in the church.  As time progressed and the situation became nastier I felt that uncanny, weighty atmosphere returning to me, but now at an intensity many times stronger than the first time I felt it.  An inner process began, a painful one, in which all the attachment I felt to my church was brutally scraped away from my soul.  Even my love of the Eucharist, which sustained my life since my First Communion, was destroyed. 
     Oh, it was truly painful.  But now came a gift that was far rarer.  It was complete detachment from the forms, the sentiments, the wishful thinking and false comfort of a collective religion.  And prospective detachment from many other things that overlaid my soul. 
     What is that power?  I can only call it the Spirit of God, which is ruthless in its desire for us to be truly ourselves -- damn every earthly illusion and pretension!  Fierce and uncompromising, yet behind the fire and destruction is Love Itself creating something new.