“The corresponding experience to what winds you up comes out in your dreams.”

       -George Harrison

It’s always the same, but different each time. The dream starts off like something out of Narnia, though I’ve had these long before I knew anything about those stories. Sometimes there’s a secret door in the back of the cupboard in my Grandmother’s basement. Sometimes I come across a path in the woods behind my childhood home. Other times I find a back stairway at a Grand Hotel, and then the journey begins; narrow pathways, tunnels, steep places, dark twisty places all filled with fear, trepidation, anxiety, and expectation. I eventually arrive at the destination. Sometimes it’s a beautiful alpine meadow, sometimes a luxury high-rise penthouse apartment, other times it’s just a really nice, nondescript, peaceful place. 

I’m the only one there. There’s nobody else around. Totally alone.

In these dreams, which I’ve had as long as I can remember, since before kindergarten even, I hang out at the place for a while, and eventually leave to go home. The path back is always dark, steep, narrow, etc., and I end up back where I started. I have had this dream hundreds of times, if not thousands. Sometimes two or three times a night, and then sometimes years pass before I dream the dream again. When I arrive back at my starting point in the dream, I find somebody, a family member, a friend, a total stranger, and try to show them what I found. Unfortunately, I can never find the secret door, the side path, the back stairway, the entrance to the dream journey. At this point the dream fizzes out, drifts away, or does whatever dreams do when they are done.

Last week the dream was different.

I don’t recall what the starting point was, but after another difficult journey I found myself at what appeared to be an old English manor house, but it was not an old English manor house, it was a museum.

Like most museums, it had various and sundry dioramas, cavemen, civil war scenes, elephants and gazelles and the like. In the dream, there was one particular diorama that was especially interesting. It was The Beatles: John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

Even more interesting, this diorama didn’t have any glass. More interesting than that was that they were moving.

The Beatles were moving because they were not mannequins. They were the actual Beatles, working in the studio, composing songs, trying to find the right key signatures, working on riffs, mixing the masters, and all that studio stuff, the actual work that goes into making an album.

Eventually they noticed that there was somebody else in the room, and one of them turned to me and said, “Hey, should we do this one like this, or should we do it like that?” So I said, “Do it the second way, but speed up the tempo just a little bit, and cut some of the high end from the EQ.” Well, it didn’t quite work out, but we continued to tweak it out from there, and eventually came up with something that worked.

When the studio workday was done, everybody left except for George Harrison and myself.  We stayed there talking for hours, as if we were old friends who knew each other for decades, even though we just recently met. 

Eventually it was time for me to leave, so I said goodbye to George, and walked to the door, where I stopped, turned around, walked back, and sat back down again. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my wallet, and pulled out my lone bill…a Twenty.

I took that Twenty, handed it to Him, and said, “I know that you don’t need this, but I want you to have it.”

“Thanks,” George replied. “You’re a good friend. I love you man.”

At that point I SUDDENLY woke up with instantaneous perfect clarity that George Harrison was NOT George Harrison.

It was Jesus who included me in His creative process. (Yes, Jesus is part of the Trinity, and The Beatles are a Quartet, but it’s a dream, dreams are funky like that, give me a break.)

It was Jesus that I was talking to like an old friend I had known for decades. 

It was Jesus who I blessed with something he didn’t need. (Kinda like the way Sheba blessed Solomon.)

It was Jesus who called me a good friend!

It was Jesus who told me that He loves me!!

(Dang it, I’m starting to tear up as I write this.)

Ok, now how to wrap this thing up? I guess I will just keep on talking until I say something because I’m sure that there is a bigger point to be made somewhere.

I always liked The Beatles. Like most folks, I had a favorite Beatle. For a while it was John Lennon. I was devastated when, in my senior year of high school, John was shot five times in the back in the doorway of his home. When I started to play guitar, I began listening closely to George’s guitar work, and his lyrics as well, especially his solo albums, and soon he became my “favorite Beatle.” Yes, he was a devout Hare Krishna, and yes, that path takes you nowhere; but it was obvious that he was searching, reaching, grasping for the truth. My favorite quote of his (not the one I started off this bit with) is this:

“Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait.”

So many times, we Christians, when we meet somebody who is caught up in the flypaper of a counterfeit faith, especially those caught up in eastern or new age systems, tend to write these folks off as some sort of Froot Loop (Note to Publisher: Yes, I spelled “Froot” correctly, that’s the way they spell it on the box). What we miss is that these guys are searching, they are trying, they are seeking, but for some reason, they are refusing to look to Jesus and choosing to do whatever works they deem necessary to reach their version of salvation. I have a suspicion that a big part of this is because the Church overall has done a lousy job of being the Church, but that’s another topic for another day. Seems to me the best thing we can do for these folks is to simply love on them, maybe even drop a couple of words of knowledge. A sign and/or wonder won’t hurt either; after all, these aren’t for our own entertainment but for drawing in them that need drawing in.

One more thing.

Ray Comfort of Living Water Ministries has a video out there on YouTube that you may find interesting. In the video, Ray discusses his discovery that in his last days, George had a friend who led him to Christ. This man happened to be a believer who took the time to meet George where he was, did not condemn him for his Hare Krishna stuff, took the time to love on George, to develop a real relationship, earned his trust, and shared the gospel both in his actions and his words.

George Harrison got saved before he died because one guy didn’t write him off as some sort of Froot Loop.

Be like that guy.

Thanks for letting me take up some of your time.