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Hall of Mirrors; Secret Room

Copyright 2000-2011 Wilma Zalabak

(Hall of Mirrors; Secret Room is a fanciful story I wrote some time ago trying to tell the wonder and joy I find in this storyland called Revelation. Though it is my actual experience written in first person, I had to do it in fantasy in order to begin to tell the extremes of despair and wonder, and the continuously expanding joy and fulfillment I’ve experienced during my adventures in Revelationland.)

Chapter One

My foot came up to meet me.

I put out a hand to steady myself and saw a dozen hands reaching frantically toward me.

I regained my balance, planted my feet, and drew in my hand, the better to stand still and survey this strange space in which I found myself. Then, from what I could see, nothing moved.

My stomach began to settle, and I decided to try to move my eyes. When I did so, I thought I saw a slight movement from several other people in this room. I studied one of those fellow humans and noticed she was wearing the same kind and color clothes as I was.

Cautiously I moved my head to look at some others. They all moved their heads.

So this was a mirror room, was it? With that settled, I could concentrate on deciphering its dimensions and furnishings.

Still without moving much, I looked around first for other signs of life and decided I was alone with my mirror clones. There were no furnishings. The only thing that relieved the continuous wash of mirror was a black molding wherever mirror-wall met mirror-ceiling and a similar molding wherever mirror-wall met mirror-floor. I let my sight follow the moldings. The room was about three feet wide and eight or nine feet tall, and at the end opposite from me the moldings converged into a dark spot as in some student’s exaggerated perspective drawing.

These observations prepared me to conclude that whatever I had come for resided at the end of this tunnel or hall of mirrors. I took three steps toward that end and found myself doubled over with dizziness and nausea. I had never experienced trying to walk quickly while feet and hands flailed at me from multiple directions, growing hideously oversized before receding to normal proportions and then taking another oversized swing at me. I slumped against a mirror-wall and slid down to the mirror-floor, sitting there very still to quiet my stomach.

I don’t know how long I huddled there. When I looked up I noticed deep in the mirror opposite me were written the numbers one through seven upon a background painting, probably five feet across, of a white clapboard church with a steeple and a bell. This sight filled me with joy because I recognized it and finally remembered how I had landed in this strange space. This was a picture of the seven churches in the Book of Revelation.

Yes, I remembered, I waked up early this morning determined again to wrestle with the strange images and numbers in the Book of Revelation. I wanted to understand. Here then were the seven churches; where were the other sevens? I slowly turned around to examine the mirror-wall at my back and there feasted my eyes on another strange sight deep in the mirror. There was a painting of a man, all over shiny and glinting in bright sunlight, with the numbers one through seven written on the painting. I recognized the man as the metal man of the Book of Daniel.

No, I didn’t remember opening the door to Daniel this morning. I opened only Revelation. The presence of this image from Daniel puzzled me, but being puzzled was nothing new, especially here this morning.

I sat and thought. I wondered what was deep within the mirror-walls that I would see if I could just stand up and walk. I tried again and finally managed to crawl on my hands and knees a few more feet before the dizziness forced my head down. Later, I looked up and into the mirror opposite me. Sure enough, there was another painting with the numbers one through seven written on it. This was a picture of a corporate or government seal embossed in a golden colored splash. I thought of the seven seals in Revelation.

Next I began to observe that, within this picture, the numbers were each in a different font and color, some large and imposing, others small and receding, with the number six larger than any of the others. Yes, there had been similar variations on the other pictures. I wanted to compare and so I studied these intently, fixing their styles and colors in my memory.

Remembering how I got here also reminded me that I had responsibilities in some world far away from this one. I decided to retrace my steps, my crawls, and see if I could return to that other world by the same door through which I had come.

"What’s the matter, Wilma, you look as though you’d seen a ghost. You’re even green. Are you sure you’re alright to be at school today?" My teacher was concerned.

"Sure," I said, and bent over my math assignment. Finishing early as usual, I reached inside my desk and took out the paper I had worked on for the last several days in my spare time. The sun shone brightly on my desk and I squinted to read the chart of the seven churches. Then I took out a new page and, moving so my head shaded my work space, I drew a new table, heading only the first column for the "Seven Churches." At the head of the second column I wrote "Seven Seals." I also had a column for the "Metal Image" from Daniel 2. Over the next several years, I filled in the columns straight from the Bible as you see them here.

Click here for chart.

Chapter Two

While reading the books of Daniel and Revelation to get the information about the sevens placed so as to satisfy myself, I came across another interesting phenomenon. I found that often the God of the Bible speaks in threes. I started a table of threes and filled those columns in over the years also. Many humorists and speakers know the power of threes in making a point or getting to the punch line. I found that same power in the words of the books of Daniel and Revelation.

Click here for chart.

Chapter Three

I began to have a craving to understand more. I found the sevens and the threes fascinating, as if I were in touch with a piece of the mind of God. I prayed to see God. I wanted to touch God; I wanted to connect with God’s motives and meanings. I craved this with all my heart. I began to pray for understanding.

One morning, many years after my first such experience, I opened the Book of Revelation and found myself again in the hall of mirrors. After the first surprise, I was most delighted and determined to go to the end of the hall this time. I set my jaw, focused my eyes at the distant point, and picked up my feet one after the other.

When I came to and finally re-focused my eyes, I lay across from the painting of the seal. I had made it partway. My clothes were in disarray; my face and the mirror-floor were sticky and red where my nose had bled from the hit it took when I fell. I tried to get up and realized a mirror-floor is not the place to walk in a dress if there is anyone else around. Well, there was no one else around so not to worry. But I did worry. The dizziness and nausea wouldn’t leave this time. If I didn’t get better I would need help to get out of here, and that help would see me as I was.

Even though crying hurt my bruised nose, it seemed to help the dizziness, so I gave myself up to a silent deluge of tears. I wanted to understand. I wanted to see God. I wanted to go to the end of this hall! Why? Somehow I believed God would be there; I had to see God no matter how bad I looked.

That was not to be, in the way I had hoped. I lay on the mirror-floor for several hours crying out to God. Then I finally collapsed. I said, "Alright, God, don’t then. Don’t let me know You. Don’t heal me. Have it Your way! Whatever! I’m just too tired to keep trying." From the moment my clenched teeth let escape those words, "Have it Your way!" something began to change in the hallway. Light, different colors of light, began to glow from different parts of the mirrors. I watched the lights dance. I let the tears dry on my face, the blood, too, as I surveyed the shimmering hall of mirrors. I noticed that the colors varied on the way down the hall but were the same from both sides of the hall. The Daniel side showed the same color at the same place as did the Revelation side. Way down the hall there was a space of very bright and active light. I wondered what that meant. I watched the lights for awhile, with the same peace washing over me as when I sit and watch a fire in the fireplace.

Some time later I realized that peace had given me enough strength to try to crawl back to the door through which I had come so many hours earlier.

I took sick leave that day from the print shop where I worked, and the next day was the Sabbath. First I took a shower and put on clean clothes. Then I gathered up my Bible and a blanket and drove to the mountains where, for two days, I read and re-read Daniel and Revelation over and over again. Indeed, I eventually got out my paper and made a table showing Daniel and Revelation as parallel in their scenes and themes. I was able to sort them into sections only because I had already identified all the sets of sevens. I listed the words and pictures straight from the Bible as you see them here.

Click here for chart.

Chapter Four

The reasoning I got from looking at my listing of the parallels between Daniel and Revelation went like this: Either (1) the author of Revelation read Daniel and created a piece with a similar big picture, or (2) the authors of both Daniel and Revelation saw and experienced and wrote from the same big picture, or (3) the God of the Bible works within similar big pictures down through the ages and wants to communicate that big picture. Whichever way it is, I knew one main thing, that I wanted more contact with whatever it was in those two books.

The most curious question to me was why those lights way down the hall were so different from the others in their intensity and vigor. Over the next several years, I read and re-read Daniel and Revelation together, with extra attention in the parts near the end, hunting something that would be especially full of lightning and would speak the same peace as I had known there in the hall of mirrors.

One day I noticed the mention of God’s commandments in Revelation 22:14 in relation to the tree of life. I remembered the Old Testament stories. An angel with a flaming sword, like lightening I decided, had guarded the tree of life, and the Ten Commandments had been given to Israel amidst a veritable laser show of lights, thunder, and lightnings. I turned to the Ten Commandments and began including them with my readings of Daniel and Revelation.

It didn’t take me long to see the similarity in themes between the Ten Commandments and my two books of the Bible. More and more, I was convinced that this God whose word I claim the Bible to be either worked the same in many different generations, or wanted desperately to heal this planet by giving the same message in many different settings.

The latter possibility became more plausible and exciting to me as I experienced the recovery movement that swept the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. It seemed to me that Bill W. and Dr. Bob, beginning on June 10, 1935, developed Alcoholics Anonymous with the help of this same big picture. I found the same themes in their Twelve Steps.

I still wanted to know about that strange peace that came over me from the light that was different. I often read the Ten Commandments and the Twelve Steps seeking that peace. Little by little, I learned to access the serenity of the first commandment.

I remembered that the lights had begun to glow and dance as soon as I had conceded, "Have it Your way." This was the trigger I learned to pull in order to access the serenity.

This was the experience of the first commandment, "Have no other gods." I had to get out of the way of this God.

This was also the experience of the first step, "Admitting powerlessness." I saw that all the healing of the further commandments and steps grew out of this first one.

That insight, with its release from struggle, its total abandon to God, and its level ground for all, became my driving motivation. I now knew I had to invite as many people as I could into the Book of Revelation. I believed God wanted to heal the universe as God was healing me.

I returned to college with a purpose this time: to learn Greek and Hebrew, the original languages of the Bible, so I could better understand and share Daniel and Revelation.

Click here for chart.

Chapter Five

I turned another page, slowly crawled a few paces, and settled in with my back against the mirror-wall to begin drawing again. It was the trumpets mirror. Absentmindedly, I’d been eating an avocado sandwich, a bite now and then over the last couple hours. I still had four hours before I’d have to leave this place. I glanced down the hall noticing again how the colored lights were dancing in this strange hall of mirrors.

At the end of the hall now I could see an opening out of which white light streamed. Something called out from that opening to something very deep inside of me. I wanted to go, but remembered the nausea that overtakes me every time I try to walk on my feet in this place. By copying these mirror pictures in my sketch book, it was as if I was conquering the space between me and that end goal. I had no idea how many more there were.

I worked meticulously. I wanted to compare the different parts of these mirrors. Every tiniest piece of information must be transferred to my book. My work had multiplied since I first started. I discovered that even the floor and ceiling held pictures that must be captured, though their outlines were fainter than the others and therefore required much more concentration. For instance, in the ceiling across from this trumpets picture, was a very faint picture of a clay bowl with the numbers one to seven and the word "plagues." It would require close work to study that one well. So, for many hours I lay on my back or my stomach gazing into the mirrors and copying.

I was grateful to my seminary professor for teaching me how to be this meticulous in my notes. I smiled and frowned at the same time when I thought of him.

"Yes," I had insisted, "I am determined to do my thesis on the Book of Revelation."

He warned me away from it. "It’s a hall of mirrors," he said.

"I know," I said. "So how is it done?"

I think that surprised him, the same as his own awareness of the hall of mirrors had surprised me. He looked at me again, studying me.

"How is what done?" he asked after a long pause.

"How do people navigate the hall of mirrors? Serious scholars, I mean."

There was another long pause under the scrutiny of his gaze, and then, he presented not an answer but several questions.

"Do you get sick when you go in there? What is it like for you? How did you learn about the hall of mirrors? How did you get in?"

I told him my story but I didn’t think he understood. Finally he seemed to decide I passed some kind of entrance requirement and he began sharing with me.

"Too many scholars and evangelists go into the hall of mirrors with a hammer," he said. "That’s why I was so concerned to hear how you came upon it and what you have done so far. They can’t handle the nausea, so they break some of the mirrors as they go. Some break the mirrors on the left, so all they have to teach is extreme right. Others teach only from the extreme left. Then there are those who knock out ceiling or floor and seem to have no foundation or focus. I think we need all sides," he said.

I wanted him to keep talking. "How did you get in?" I asked.

"Compared to you, I forced my way in," he said. "I’ve always wondered if I broke something when I did, and maybe there’s something missing that I never knew existed." He sounded a bit sad at the thought. Then be brightened.

"But you just found yourself there. You prayed your way in. You will see it all."

"How does one use force to get into the hall of mirrors?" I wondered.

"Well, I didn’t carry any hammer, but I have very logical ways of working my mind and found that if I calculated hard enough I could break over into the hall of mirrors. The problem is that once I’m in I’m all logic and calculation. I’ve always known there’s more there than logic and calculation can access." He paused then, looking out his window. I wondered if he had gone away somewhere in his mind.

"Here’s what I want you to do," he said, and taught me how to use my Greek and Hebrew skills, how to examine each word, how to record meticulously everything I learned. I already knew how to get into the hall by special prayer, so I did it often. Then I began setting aside entire weekends to be there. Also, I had learned to bring my sketch pad with me, and a sandwich.

Only rarely did I ever see anyone else in the hall of mirrors. Once I met a woman named Ellen who seemed to be not troubled at all by the nausea. I came upon her at one of my mirror pictures and she showed me some details I think I would have missed but for her experience. I asked her how she was able to get around without getting sick.

"I’ve been to the secret room," she said motioning down the hall toward the streaming white light. "Once you’ve been to the secret inner room, everything is different." Then she left, going out the same door I used to go in and out.

Once I saw another woman whose name was too hard for me to say. She huddled against a mirror-wall with her sketch pad in a way very similar to the way I huddled. I understood and left her to her work.

I tried to talk about my experience with other seminarians, young men headed for the ministry. I met only blank stares, if they listened at all. I decided that perhaps a female mind and an artist mind were equipped in a different way to understand the eastern mind than were male minds and calculating minds. It is the eastern mind which wrote the Bible.

So I went alone and often to the hall of mirrors.

I worried some. Was I crazy, since no one else saw the Book of Revelation as I did? Was my research insulting to the male dominance in this field? Who was I to tackle something so utterly magnificent as this hall of mirrors? What if I failed to reproduce accurately some piece of the information? I was getting closer and closer to passages about the judgment in the Book of Revelation; would my mistakes haunt me in the judgment? Actually I worried a lot about these things.

Still, I went often to the hall of mirrors.

The last mirror picture before the great white light at the end of the hall was indeed the Ten Commandments, but it didn’t match the end of the Book of Revelation as I had at first surmised. I had not yet come near the end. The Ten Commandments, however, showed up in all the pictures at that spot, in the opposite wall, in the floor, and in the ceiling.

In the week’s interim before I was able to come to the hall again, as I studied all the pictures I had copied, they began to make a surprising kind of sense. Half of them were from the last half of the Book of Revelation or the Book of Daniel and half were from the first half of the books. I read the text and found many ways in which the last half of the book matched the first half but in reverse order. That meant that these Ten Commandment pieces, reflecting Revelation 12 and 14, must flank or else be a part of whatever was making that great white light at the end of the hall. Then I wondered where would I find the secret inner room. I spent many hours with my Bible

Click here for chart.

Chapter Six

I already knew reversal as a financial disaster. I also remembered reversal as a literary plot, the "hangman hanged" stories and the "victorious victim" stories. And yes, I remembered there were other books in the Bible with reversal as a plot. I wondered if their structures reflected their story lines. I did the work on several of them besides the Book of Revelation and have reproduced here my notes.

It would appear to me that God intended to communicate God’s desire for the healing of the universe at several times throughout the history of the writing of the Bible.

Click here for chart.

Chapter Seven

I planned the weekend free of interruptions, packed my lunch and my sketch pad, and found myself ushered into the light by my friends, the Ten Commandments.

"Aha, Ooh, Shh," as quietly as the ebb and flow of breath the sounds engulfed me. I felt the tug of releasing gravity, and the lifting hug of someone big and warm. A fragrance like apple blossoms teased my nostrils. And the light, the light bored through my hands and through my squeezed-shut eyelids to my eyes not adjusted in the brightness. At first I screamed out with the pain in my eyes, but then the light seemed healing instead of painful, and I gradually opened up to the warmth and the most intense colors and white light I have ever seen. Ribbons of color danced in the streaming white light. The hug continued to lift me, swaying gently as I relaxed in its arms. Piece by piece I unfolded from my fetal position, and opened my whole body to the center of this light. "Aha, Ooh, Shh," breathed around me. Apple blossom fragrance stretched my air passages. The hug lifted and rocked me. I relaxed. "Aha, Ooh, Shh."

From the light came the voice, "I am your Champion. I have championed your cause and I have won." I soaked up the atmosphere surrounding the voice and words.

"I have all your mistakes in my bucket. I claim them as mine so I can minimize their consequences, and soon I will dump the bucket." I began to tremble at the mention of my mistakes.

"The hour of my judgment has come," the voice boomed all around me now. "My judgment. It is my judgment, where all intelligent beings will decide whether I have the authority to dump all the buckets I have carried. It is not primarily your judgment; it is my judgment."

"Aha," whispered the breath around me.

"Aha," I echoed because I remembered the words, "The hour of His [God’s] judgment is come." I also remembered how similar they were to words describing the destruction of the great whore of the Book of Revelation, "In one hour is your [Babylon’s] judgment come." I suddenly understood that in God’s judgment both God and people will be vindicated in the courtroom of the universe, while it is only someone else’s judgment that destroys. I understood.

"Aha," I breathed, and then I breathed some more, the understanding of the "Aha."

Strength poured into me from all directions, through my skin, through my eyes, through my ears. I began to look around me. Truly I now hung at the apex of events, the farthest sweep of the swing. I actually hung there, poised for the whoosh back up the hall of mirrors, but delaying the descent from this secret inner room yet a little while longer. The ribbons of color danced to me and caressed me. The white light bathed and warmed me. The hug snuggled me. The apple blossom fragrance cleansed my lungs.

"Ooh," whispered the breath around me.

"Ooh," I echoed, the beauty infilling my heart with love. I saw how everything existed in perfect symmetry. What God had opened God would close. What God had started God would finish. Whatever ledger stood unbalanced, God would balance. The swing had swung; it would swing back. The sense of closure enfolded me and I rejoiced in the victory of my Champion.

"Ooh," I breathed, and then I breathed some more, the beauty of the "Ooh."

Then there was quietness. Quietness strode up to me, shook my hand, opened the door to the space that is me, and walked in. Quietness took up residence with me. It is the okayness of not looking good. It is the end of trying to be or do better than others. It is the end of trying to say anything good enough to describe this place.

"Shh," whispered the breath around me.

"Shh," I echoed and then I heard.

The quietness itself dripped with voices. Voices in Spanish, Chinese, and Russian I understood. Voices in accents of church, voices in slurs of barroom, voices of Methodists and Muslims, voices of Baptists and Buddhists I heard and understood. Voices of computer geeks and political pundits, voices of rich, voices of poor, voices of free, and voices of oppressed. I heard the voices of a multitude of nations, tribes, and people. I heard them and understood.

Then I knew the God of the Book of Revelation, the God who listens while I get my "Aha." This is the God who listens to a multitude of voices, the God whose love is big enough to hear them all. This is the God of a unity and love bigger than nation or denomination, a unity that listens to all the differences. This is the God with love that listens, the God of the "Shh."

"Shh," I breathed, and then I breathed some more, the listening love of the "Shh."

"Before you return," the voice finally spoke again, "I remind you of two things. One, you can return here anytime so long as you keep your surrender as in the first commandment. Two, tell as many people as you can about this. You need not worry about whether they understand. Your job is to tell your experience."

I breathed again and the whoosh began. "Aha, Ooh, Shh," breathed around me. At the threshold, I stood for a moment capturing the "Shh," to take with me. I needed the listening; I needed the quiet. Somehow I knew I needed to take it with me for use whenever I wanted to tell my experience. Because I have the quietness of the "Shh," I have no pressure to tell it better, and because I have the listening of the "Shh," I find I can tell it better.

The whoosh carried me all the way back through the hall of mirrors. Now the ceiling and floor mirror pictures were brighter than before and filled out with much detail. I wanted to come back soon to draw again. I opened the door into my world and slept for twelve hours. Then I got out my Bible and drew this plot outline of the glorious closure of all things as I know them. I present it here for your review and comparison with the text.

Click here for chart.

I return often to the hall of mirrors and the secret room. Sometimes I move about quite freely; other times I must be low on surrender because the old sickness threatens. I’ve copied the pictures many times, and every time I see something new.

From this entire adventure, what I most want you to know is this God who listens, the God who listens despite all your mistakes, the God who listens while you get your "Aha!," the God at the heart of the "Aha," the "Ooh," and the "Shh."