Vision

This was … unusually weird. I took Little One with me to our church last night. They were holding a special “Healing Mass” and I figured, well, since I’m still not quite a hundred percent after my surgeries way-way back, it couldn’t hurt. We got there fifteen minutes early and sat up close to the altar as the church gradually filled to about fifty percent capacity.

While Little One read her book I kneeled forward and did my prayers, and then glanced up at the crucifix. Like most Catholic churches, we have a six or eight-foot cross with a very realistic Christ nailed to it. It hangs about ten feet off the concrete wall twenty feet behind the altar. We were about ten pews back, so the crucifix hung about fifty feet or so in front of me.

My eyes narrowed a bit as I studied the figure of Jesus upon the cross. I swear … it started to breathe! Just a slow motion, barely detectable, His chest and shoulder raising about an inch and then lowering, repeating itself rhythmically. I would stare away, or make myself say something to my daughter, and then look back up. After a moment, it appeared to move again!

I stared some more, perhaps for two or three minutes straight. Ever observe something so long, so closely, so focused, that your peripheral vision kinda fades, at least from your conscious awareness? That’s the way I was staring. And every three or four breaths He seemed to adjust Himself ever so slightly, maybe moving a shoulder up an inch or so and twisting His torso ever so slightly, maybe to relieve some of the agonizing pressure from the nails in His feet.

Now, the caveat: last night I only got four-and-a-half hours sleep. I had to drink a can of Diet Coke for the caffeine to stay awake through lunchtime. The night before I got just four hours. I haven’t been sleeping well for at least two weeks. So I am horribly, terribly sleep-deprived. I’m yawning as I write this, and it’s only ten in the morning. Plus the stress of paying bills and an uncertain future is quickly reaching critical mass. So the most likely explanation of this is that it was a minor hallucination induced by sleep deprivation and an intense desire to see something … unusually weird.

Either that, or it was an acid flashback. (I kid, I kid.) (Or do I?)