One Door From Heaven

meadow, cicadas singing, their music shivering in her blood… and now she's an older dog racing through succulent grass in pursuit of an orange butterfly bright as a fluttering flame, burning mysteriously in the air… from meadow into woods, shadows and the scent of hemlock, the fragrance of decaying leaves and needles, here the butterfly as bright as the sun in a shaft of light but now eclipsed and lost… around her the croaks of woodland toads, as she follows the scent of deer along trails overhung by ferns, unafraid in the deepening shadows because the playful Presence runs with her here, as always elsewhere…
        One dream flows swiftly into another, lacking a connective narrative. Joy is the only thread on which these images are strung: joy the thread, and memories like bright beads.
        Sitting against the balm-of-Gilead, Curtis shivers, first with exhilaration and delight.
        This meadow becomes less real to him than the fields in the dog's mind, the chuckle of this brook less convincing than the croak of toads in her clear and vivid dreams.
        Spates of shivers build into continuous trembling as Curtis more clearly experiences the dog's profound joy. This isn't simply the joy of running, of springing agilely from log to mossy rock; this isn't just the joy of freedom or of being fully alive, but the piercing joy that comes with the awareness of that holy, playful Presence.
        Running with her in the dreams, Curtis seeks a glimpse of their constant companion, expecting suddenly to see an awesome countenance looking out from the layered fronds of the ferns or gazing down from the cathedral trees. Then the dog's ultimate wisdom, arising from her perfect innocence, is shared with Curtis, and he receives the truth that is simultaneously a revelation and a mystery, both a euphoric exaltation and a profound humbling. The boy recognizes the Presence everywhere around him, not confined to one bosk of ferns or one pool of shadows, but resonant in all things. He feels what otherwise he has only known through faith and common sense, feels for one sweet devastating moment what only the innocent can feel: the exquisite rightness of creation from shore to shore across the sea of stars, a clear ringing in the heart that chases out all fears and every anger, a sense of belonging, purpose, hope, an awareness of being loved.
        Mere joy gives way to rapture, and the boy's awe grows deeper, an awe lacking any quality of terror, but so filled with wonder and with liberating humility that his trembling swells into shakes that seem to clang his heart against the bell of his ribs. At the moment when rapture becomes peals of bliss, his shaking wakes the dog.
        The dream ends and with it the connection to eternity, the joy-inducing nearness of the playful Presence. A sense of loss shudders through Curtis.
        In her innocence, waking or sleeping, the dog lives always with the awareness of her Maker's presence. But when she's awake, Curtis's psychic bond with her isn't as profound as when she sleeps, and now he cannot share her special awareness as he did in her dreams.
        The iridescent blues of summer sky shimmer down, becoming golden currents as they descend, greening in meadow grass, sparkling silver in the purling brook-as though the day takes inspiration from one of those 1940s jukeboxes that phases ceaselessly through a custom rainbow, silently waiting for the next nickel to be dropped.
        Nature never seemed this vivid before; wherever he looks, the day is electrified, radiant, shocking in its beauty and complexity.
        He wipes his face repeatedly, and each time that he lowers his hands, the dog licks his fingers, partly in consolation, partly with affection, but also because she likes the taste of his salty tears.
        The boy is left with a memory of transcendence, but not with the feeling of it, which is the core of the experience-yet he doesn't mourn the loss. Indeed, life would be unlivable if at every moment he felt the full intimacy of his spiritual bond with his Maker.
        The dog was born in that state of grace. She is accustomed to it, and she is comfortable with her awareness because her innocence leaves her unfettered by self-consciousness.
        For Curtis, as for humankind, such spiritual intensity must be reserved for a life beyond this one, or for many lives beyond, when deep peace has been earned, when innocence has been