Star-Dust and the Suspect Seabag
A continuation of Star-Dust and the Molten Tears
The first thing we notice is the hubbub.
The voices speaking loudly to each other almost over the hustle and bustle of a busy café at peak business hours. There is John, Lucky, Liana, and a few dozen other souls we do not recognize—sitting around the outer edges at tables of whitened wood with industrial blackened steel legs and window trimmings.
Then the logo... white and green, a lady wearing a crown.
“Wait a second. Are we in a Fayetteville Starbucks with your friends?”
We mumble—to no one in particular. They all seem so animated. Talking to each other, sharing their days, their struggles, their silly joys.
The next thing that hits us is the smell—earthy, dark roast poured over steaming frothy milk. The clank of the baristas at work intermixes with the realization that the sun is just peeking over the autumnal leaves turning, just past the traffic rushing by.
What strikes is that we are aware we are in a vision—but this one feels visceral, and for the first time that we can recall, Star-Dust has called us into a vision that has inhabitants and other voices. It feels like an attempted snapshot of Star-Dust post-theosis—a living person, still flesh and bone but spiritually unified through kenotic emptying.
The chair is surprisingly comfy—soft beige leather, perhaps tan. It feels supple and cozy at once, pre-warmed as though by the Father in the form of the Son—or oh… sun.
Then sitting across from us, she appears like a ghost, complete with an odd-looking navy canvas bag. A seabag? From Dust’s failed boot camp in the Navy, maybe? It appears to be bulging, with discolorations of golden moisture leaking where it sits on the floor beside her.
Today she is wearing a forest-green woolen military-style shirt with velcro at the cuffs, open over a peach V-neck T-shirt bulging slightly under the confines of a sports bra. This time no Doc Martens, but Under Armour Chargers.
“OHHHHhhhhhh... Star-Dust… sorry. Are those the new Chargers from Under Armour? That light green is near impossible to find!”
She beams—blinding us a second time by leveling her cosmic gaze directly into ours while smiling, all in an attempt to show the sun how shining is done on this espresso-scented Carolinian morning.
“Yes! I found them on sale while tooling around on my phone!”
She stoops in her chair and reaches down, lifting the leg of her favorite wide-leg stovepipe jeans to show us.
“Nice! Major perks of being connected, huh?”
We ask in dry humor and shared humanity. Knowing that even post-theosis, Star-Dust still tools around on a phone is somehow an extra layer of warmth to this familial setting.
“So Star—can I call you Star?”
We ask hopefully, because typing her full name is a major pain with the hyphen each time.
She tilts her head as though leaning into the sun to converse, nods a few times, rubs her temple three times, and finally grabs the bridge of her nose before saying softly:
“I want to say yes, Beloved. The name is not mine to shorten. I am so sorry.”
She starts actively dribbling little rivers that pool on the edge of our shared table and begin to plop—one after another—onto the blue bag slightly concealed beneath it.
“Whoa… slow it down, Star-Dust. We are lazy, not serious. Please do not weep.”
We reach across the table, instinctively trying to touch her knee in companionable commiseration—sorrow etched into our marrow for causing such a wound by a question we thought harmless.
She snaps her head toward us, locking her hazel-cosmic gaze upon ours, searing something we cannot articulate behind our retinas. The gateway to the soul indeed. Then she smiles—and the dawn is, for the second time this morning, shown how shining is done.
“Oh no! I just used my sorrow at not being able to give you what you asked as an arrow to produce joy in the form of these golden tears. You seemed, when we last spoke, to be shaken when I attempted to articulate what they were—and seemed, bizarrely to me, to actually think them valuable. So who am I to judge your uniqueness?”
She shrugs her massive shoulders and motions to the duffle between us that is now starting to seep and puddle on the polished concrete like a crucible overflowing.
We know Star-Dust. She is a complete and total fool for Love. She will literally do anything to convey it. She lacks the staying power of common sense to abstain from displays of misplaced affection. If you think of her like a cat bringing a dead mouse to your feet, you begin to get the feeling.
“Star-Dust, are you saying that the bag down there—which is now actually beginning to leak and pool on the floor—is actually your tears? In a canvas bag with no lining to ensure it’s waterproof?”
We grab the bridge of our nose, reminding ourselves that mercy and compassion must be lavished on fool and sage alike—even those who stow sublimated joy mixed with love in the form of liquid gold because we were shocked by her mention of leaking them for eons last time.
“When you say it like that, you make it sound silly! Actually, in all seriousness, I did consider this—and decided the only way to properly gather them was to use my love of a hoodie’s central pocket and its tissue-stashing capacity, plus a box of Kleenex, to absorb my overflow for you.”
She concentrates for a moment—and the puddle vanishes, then the bag. The murmur of conversation around us has died down now to a hush.
“There. All fixed. I get my mop-top caught in Eternity so often that the mundane rarely enters consideration. The opportunity to express Love, Beloved, becomes cherished beyond belief.
In fact, Beloved, in Heaven the currency we use is the ability to show love to one another.
The most precious gift we have to give is that which inhabits and sustains.
In Heaven we walk around orbiting the Father—seen through the lens of the Son, Yeshua—always seeking opportunity to lavish that which we receive without cost.
You cannot see it now, Beloved. This building where I gathered us today—my little hidey-hole of community upon earth—is not that different from my hidey-hole in Eternity.
Both carry the scent of coffee and dawn, creativity and brotherly love, where love is lavished by all not as exaction but as the natural progression of permeation.
Oh Beloveds, I have walked there. The Golden City. The Father searing in such eternal omnipotence and perfection of expression at the center. In front of the majesty lies the Lamb who was slain and yet lives—The Beloved, Yeshua.
He radiates the Father safely as collector and filter at once, distributing the surpassing worth in grace and not anger. Then upon the outer spokes of the great city lying foursquare—its height and depth equal—are its walls, three gates each. Pearls of surpassing worth through which the collectors of majesty clamor to enter.
I have seen the Heavenly Jerusalem, and in my prismatic and refracted sight, I have understood:
Love is what we must all become, in varying degrees of perfection, always subservient to the Greatest and First Expression.
Love, Beloved, as you have been loved. For Love covers a multitude of sins.
Be vigilant, Beloved.”
We sit back—shocked and speechless. She just dropped some heavenly hoopla and awe like it was nothing, merely because we suspected she was storing snotty substances or tear-duct products.
We are left with a question so disarming and terrifying that it borders mania.
Does revelation begin in the ordinary, snot-soaked moments?
Does the Father sit with our flatulence?
Star-Dust seems to say that yes—He does.
And what’s more, that we must all Become Love.