Baseball Diamond in the Sky
Last night we watched the extraordinary “Field of Dreams” game on TV, inspired by the 1989 movie starring Kevin Costner. For many baseball lovers, that story is as holy as a Biblical parable. It’s also a film about fathers and sons bonded together by their shared love for the game.
Watching the game reminded us both of two visions Brad received in the past about his father, the man from whom he inherited his love for baseball. Here they are, excerpted from our book, Climbing the Rope to God: Mystical Testimony and Teaching.
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One night I was sleeping in a tent in the Kalahari and I dreamed that a shooting star fell from the evening sky. Just before it hit the earth, I saw my father in a baseball uniform running for that star. He leapt high into the air and caught it.
My father loved baseball and he was good enough to be given a letter of intent from the St. Louis Cardinals when he was fifteen years old. Unfortunately, he never made it to the big leagues because he was enlisted to serve in the war. I was fortunately able to watch him make a great play in the Kalahari night. I woke up after that dream and went outside to take a look at the sky. That moment I saw a shooting star exactly like I had dreamed it. I felt my father by my side.
The next morning I told my Bushman friends about the dream and they became very excited. They explained that this kind of dream, followed by the actual sight of a falling star, means that you have received a special ancestral rope to God. You can find your way to God through the love you have for your ancestors. You only need one felt connection to one other person that feels like a deep familial love, whether it is through a father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, sibling, or other relative. Even a spiritual parent or brother or sister will work; this includes a teacher or preacher. They, in turn, have the same kind of link to someone else. One link at a time, the chain, the rope, the pole, the tube, the ladder, or the staircase to First Creation heaven is made. As the Bushman way teaches, the rope to God consists of all your ancestors holding on to one another or dancing while slumped over one another’s backs, as they like to depict it.
Years later, in 2016, I prayed while wondering whether I would receive a dream that would help move our book toward an ending.
That night I found myself in a vision getting into the Chrysler Imperial to begin another journey. Hillary joined me and we drove on and on for quite some distance. We finally pulled up to an old baseball stadium that looked like it had been built in the early 1900s. We parked the car and went into the entrance to the stadium, which was a tall, concrete tower that appeared like a control tower found at an old airport. We climbed the steps to the top where tickets to the baseball game were being sold. The game had already started and I could hear the wonderful cracking sound of a bat hitting the ball as the crowd cheered on. I asked the man at the booth what tickets were still available for the game. He said, “You are in luck because we have the best seats in the house, box seats behind home plate, unless you’d like to sit behind first base. We have those tickets as well.”
I received our tickets and Hillary and I went through the gate. Somehow we, and the whole stadium, were suspended in the heavens. There I beheld one of the most beautiful sights I have ever witnessed. I stood directly behind home plate, high in the sky, looking at the most magical baseball diamond in the cosmos. I could feel my father waiting for me to be by his side. As we walked to our seats, I woke up and felt blessed that I had come home.
The ancestors and all the holy saints, mystics, shamans, healers, preachers, and teachers of old are waiting for you to join them in the diamond in the sky. Start at home plate and hold your pipe, now a First Creation bat that is ready to swing with just the right rhythm, and hit the ball on the mark that sends you to first base. Make sure you round all the bases and find yourself completing a victory lap, bringing you back home to the beginning, ready for the next swinging hit that sends you on another trip around the diamond in the sky.
– The Keeneys, August 13, 2021