The ladder to God

Kathleen Norris, in her book Amazing Grace: a vocabulary of faith relates a real-life story of epiphany—or a revelation of God—worth reading on this eve of Epiphany (which is January 6, the twelfth day of Christmas):

Once a little boy came up to me and said, "I saw the ladder that goes up to God." I closed the book that I was reading which happened to be "The Ladder of Divine Ascent," by a fierce sixth-century monk, John Climacus, and I listened. The boy told me that the ladder was by his treehouse and that God had come halfway down. God's clothes were covered with pockets—like a kangaroo, he said, and we both laughed. Even God's running shoes had pockets, he told me, full of wonder, and we laughed again. He told me that God carried food in the pockets to feed all the dead birds and the dead people.

This boy had recently experienced that most fierce of childhood experiences, the death of a beloved dog. It had been bitten by a rabid raccoon on his family's ranch, and his father had had to shoot both animals. As the boy told me of his dream, I thought about Jacob, who during a time of crisis in his life had also seen a ladder going up to heaven. Jacob's response has always appealed to me; when he wakes, he says, "God is in this place, and I did not know it."

Revelation is not explanation, and it is not acquired through reading John Climacus, or anyone else. It is the revealing of the presence of a God who cares for all creatures, even a little boy who lives on a ranch in a part of America that has often been called "godforsaken." A boy whose dog had died, and who needs, and receives divine consolation.